José Manuel Cordero Ferrera

Rendimiento educativo y determinantes según PISA : una revisión de la literatura en España

La publicacion de los resultados de la cuarta oleada del Informe PISA ha vuelto a poner de relieve la distancia que sigue existiendo entre Espana y el resto de paises. El evidente interes por reducir esa distancia ha dado lugar en los ultimos anos a la proliferacion de estudios empiricos que, tomando como base la informacion proporcionada por esta base de datos, han tratado de indagar acerca de cuales son los principales determinantes del rendimiento educativo en nuestro pais. El objetivo de este trabajo es revisar sistematicamente estas investigaciones con el proposito de clasificarlas, ordenarlas y extraer sus principales conclusiones, cuyo interes para el desarrollo de medidas de politica educativa resulta evidente. De acuerdo con este objetivo, los trabajos pueden dividirse fundamentalmente en dos grandes bloques segun su enfoque metodologico: los que utilizan un analisis de regresion para determinar si existe algun tipo de relacion estadistica significativa entre un unico indicador representativo del output educativo y un conjunto de variables explicativas, y los que emplean un enfoque de tipo frontera, en los que se acepta que pueden existir comportamientos ineficientes por parte de los alumnos. A pesar de los diferentes enfoques utilizados, la mayoria de los trabajos coinciden en identificar las variables de tipo socioeconomico, la repeticion de curso o la concentracion de inmigrantes como principales determinantes del rendimiento educativo, mientras que los factores asociados con los recursos escolares tienen un poder explicativo muy bajo. Asimismo, la variacion de los resultados atribuible a las escuelas es relativamente pequena y se explica, en su mayor parte, por las caracteristicas de los alumnos. Por ultimo, cabe destacar que, una vez que se tienen en cuenta las variables socioeconomicas asociadas a las familias de los alumnos, las diferencias en los resultados obtenidos por los centros publicos, privados y concertados no son significativas.

The effect of quality and socio-demographic variables on efficiency measures in primary health care

This paper aims to extend the literature on measuring efficiency in primary health care by considering the influence of quality indicators and environmental variables conjointly in a case study. In particular, environmental variables are represented by patients’ characteristics and quality indicators are based on technical aspects. In order to deal with both aspects, different extensions of data envelopment analysis (DEA) methodology are applied. Specifically, we use weight restrictions to ensure that the efficiency scores assigned to the evaluated units take quality data into account, and a four-stage model to identify which exogenous variables have impact on performance as well as to compute efficiency scores that incorporate this information explicitly. The results provide evidence in support of the importance of including information about both aspects in the analysis so that the efficiency measures obtained can be interpreted as an accurate reflection of performance.

Explanatory Factors for Achievement in Primary Education: An Analysis Using TIMSS 2011

espanolLos resultados del estudio TIMSS 2011, en el que se evaluan las competencias de los alumnos de primaria a escala internacional, ponen de manifiesto la distancia que separa a Espana de los promedios de la OCDE, especialmente en matematicas. El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar los principales factores que explican el rendimiento de nuestros estudiantes en esta competencia. Para ello, se emplean tecnicas de regresion multinivel, puesto que los datos disponibles estan anidados en diferentes niveles (alumnos, clases y escuelas). Los resultados obtenidos confirman algunas evidencias ya conocidas para la ensenanza secundaria y anaden otros aspectos especificos para el caso de primaria. EnglishThe results of the TIMSS 2011 study, an international survey that assesses the educational skills of students enrolled in primary education, highlight the gap between the level of Spanish students and the average of OECD countries, especially in mathematics. The aim of this paper is to analyze the main factors behind the Spanish student performance in this competence. For that purpose, we apply multilevel regression techniques, since the available data are nested at different levels (students, classes and schools). The results confirm some evidences found for secondary education as well as other specific aspects for the case of primary education.

Efficiency assessment of real estate cadastral offices using DEA

This article describes an approach to measuring efficiency of a set of units operating in an administrative public service context, namely real estate cadastral offices, a venue which has not been analysed previously in the reported literature. This study was madepossible thanks to the dataset provided by the Directorate General of Real Estate Cadastral Assessment and includes relevant information on regional cadastral offices in Spain over the time period 2000 to 2005. Data Envelopment Analysis and Malmquist indices were used to estimate the efficiency levels of these units. The results of these analyses revealed the existence of significant differences between average efficiency levels and the identification of efficient units throughout the period under consideration, although it is possible to detect a substantial improvement in technical efficiency for the last two years of the data collection period, when the new regulation about real estate evaluation came into effect. Likewise, the estimation of a second stage model based on bootstrap techniques highlights the importance of collaborating with other public sector agents to enhance efficiency levels. Points for practitioners This article provides an empirical analysis of units providing cadastral services in Spain using Data Envelopment Analysis. This technique is an excellent tool for professionals working in public management and administration since it is easy to implement and allows identifying the best performers among producers operating in a field, which can be considered as benchmarks for other units searching to improve their results. Ourresults confirm that the units collaborating with other public sector agents (mainly councils and notaries) accomplish enhanced performances in terms of efficiency. This evidence can be useful for policy-makers interested in reducing costs and improving the organization of administrative units.