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A bounds analysis of school completion rates in Australia
Author(s) -
Gørgens Tue,
Ryan Chris
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of applied econometrics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.878
H-Index - 99
eISSN - 1099-1255
pISSN - 0883-7252
DOI - 10.1002/jae.975
Subject(s) - attrition , repetition (rhetorical device) , demographic economics , official statistics , econometrics , economics , political science , statistics , demography , sociology , mathematics , medicine , philosophy , linguistics , dentistry
Abstract Official estimates of school completion rates in Australia increased in the 1980s, peaked in 1992, and fell immediately thereafter before stabilizing. The official estimates were a specific focus of Australian education policy. The decline caused concern at the time. We use data from the Australian Youth Survey (AYS) to gain insight into the behavior of the official estimates. The AYS suffers from nonrepresentativeness, attrition and nonresponse, which means that parameters of interest are not identified. Our bounds analysis is suggestive that school completion was overstated in the official estimates at their peak. Our analysis points to repetition as a key factor in inflating the official estimates. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.