Stephen Gibbons

Mostly Pointless Spatial Econometrics

We argue that identification problems bedevil most applied spatial research. Spatial econometrics solves these problems by deriving estimators assuming that functional forms are known and by using model comparison techniques to let the data choose between competing specifications. We argue that in most situations of interest this, at best, achieves only very weak identification. Worse, in most cases, such an approach will simply be uninformative about the economic processes at work rendering much applied spatial econometric research ‘pointless’, unless the main aim is simply description of the data. We advocate an alternative approach based on the ‘experimental paradigm’ which puts issues of identification and causality at centre stage.

Valuing English primary schools

This paper provides the first empirical evidence for the UK on the effect of primary school performance on property prices. We find that, on average, a one percentage point increase in the neighbourhood proportion of children reaching the government-specified target grade pushes up neighbourhood property prices by 0.67%. At 2000 property prices, we calculate the social valuation of a sustained 1% improvement in primary school performance to be up to £90 per child per year. Our instrumental variable and semi-parametric approach avoids the problems of school quality endogeneity and omitted neighbourhood variables that occur in typical property value models.

The Costs of Urban Property Crime

This paper estimates the impact of recorded domestic property crime on property prices in the London area. Crimes in the Criminal Damage category have a significant negative impact on prices. Burglaries have no measurable impact on prices, even after allowing for the potential dependence of burglary rates on unobserved property characteristics. A one-tenth standard deviation decrease in the local density of criminal damage adds 1 per cent to the price of an average Inner London property. One explanation we offer here is that vandalism, graffiti and other forms of criminal damage motivate fear of crime in the community and may be taken as signals or symptoms of community instability and neighbourhood deterioration in general.

Does Hospital Competition Save Lives? Evidence from the English NHS Patient Choice Reforms

Recent substantive reforms to the English National Health Service expanded patient choice and encouraged hospitals to compete within a market with fixed prices. This study investigates whether these reforms led to improvements in hospital quality. We use a difference-in-difference-style estimator to test whether hospital quality (measured using mortality from acute myocardial infarction) improved more quickly in more competitive markets after these reforms came into force in 2006. We find that after the reforms were implemented, mortality fell (i.e. quality improved) for patients living in more competitive markets. Our results suggest that hospital competition can lead to improvements in hospital quality.

Choice, Competition and Pupil Achievement

Choice and competition in education have recently found growing support from both policy-makers and academics. Yet evidence on the actual benefits of market-orientated reforms is at best mixed. Moreover, although the economic rationale for choice and competition is clear, in existing work there is rarely an attempt to distinguish between the two concepts. In this paper, we study whether pupils in Primary schools in England with a wider range of school choices achieve better academic outcomes than those whose choice is more limited; and whether Primary schools facing more competition perform better than those in a more monopolistic situation. In simple least squares regression models we find little evidence of a link between choice and achievement, but uncover a small positive association between competition and school performance. Yet this could be related to endogenous school location or pupil sorting. In fact, an instrumental variable strategy based on discontinuities generated by admissions district boundaries suggests that the performance gains from greater school competition are limited. Only when we restrict our attention to Voluntary Aided schools, which have more freedom in managing their governance and admission practices, do we find some evidence of a positive causal link between competition and pupil achievement.

Faith Primary Schools: Better Schools or Better Pupils?

We estimate the causal effect of attending a state Faith school on primary education achievement in England using administrative student-level data and implementing various strategies to control for students’ selection into Faith schooling. Our regressions control for fixed effects in prior achievement and residential postcode to compare pupils who are close residential neighbors and have identical observable ability. We also use information on future school choices to control for preferences for Faith schooling. Results show that pupils progress faster in Faith primary schools, but all of this advantage is explained by sorting into Faith schools according to preexisting characteristics and preferences.

Are Schools Drifting Apart? Intake Stratification in English Secondary Schools

The issue of social segregation in schools has seen a recent resurgence of interest, in the light of policies that have sought to expand parental choice. Most research has focused on segregation along lines of ethnicity or social background. Yet, the real consideration in the back of peoples minds seems to be stratification along lines of pupil ability. This paper looks explicitly at this issue using the population of pupils entering secondary schools in England from 1996 to 2002. The study highlights wide disparities between peer-group ability in different schools. However, contrary to popular opinion, almost nothing has changed over these years in terms of the way pupils of different age-11 abilities are sorted into different secondary schools.

Urban density and pupil attainment

We explore the association between urban density and pupil attainment using three cohorts of pupils in schooling in England. Although--as widely recognised--attainment in dense urban places is low on average, this is not because urban environments disadvantage pupils, but because the most disadvantaged pupils with low average attainments attend the most urbanised schools. To control for this, we exploit changes in urban density faced by pupils during compulsory transition from Primary to Secondary school, and measure educational progress at the end of the Secondary phase, relative to attainment at the end of Primary schooling. Our results suggest that there are small but significant benefits from education in schools in more densely urbanised settings. We detect this density advantage even amongst pupils moving relatively short distances between Primary and Secondary schools within urban areas, so we cannot attribute it to broad urbanisation effects experienced by pupils making rural-urban school moves. A more likely explanation lies in greater school choice and competition between closely co-located educational providers.

Assessment and age 16+ education participation

This paper summarises our research into the relationship between pupil assessment at age 14 (Key Stage 3) and participation in age 16+ education. We question whether a systematic gap between teacher‐based assessment and externally marked tests indicates assessment bias or uncertainty, either in testing procedures or through teachers’ perceptions of pupils’ skills. We explore whether these errors have consequences for pupils’ subsequent educational attainment and participation. We find that teacher and test assessments diverge slightly along lines of pupil characteristics, especially prior achievement, clearly observable to the teacher but less so to external assessors, but this does not conform to notions of teacher stereotyping. Moreover, the divergence between the assessments at age 14 has almost no bearing on pupil qualifications or participation in education after age 16, and is unlikely to influence participation rates in higher education (HE).

In defence of our research on competition in England's National Health Service

2064 www.thelancet.com Vol 378 December 17/24/31, 2011 Submissions should be made via our electronic submission system at http://ees.elsevier.com/ thelancet/ strongest support for the causation hypothesis may be revealed”. Indeed, Bradford Hill also lavished praise on Snow, who examined the causes of cholera outbreaks in London in what is regarded as the fi rst use of diff erencein-diff erence regression. This is the same strategy we used to test the eff ect of competition. No study is perfect, which is why we have peer review and open science. However, the fact that three studies by separate research teams produced consistent results strongly fortifi es our collective fi ndings. More work surely needs to be done to understand the changes competition has brought about in England. However, the way forward should be to look objectively to see what is driving our fi ndings, rather than dismissing the results out of hand because they confl ict with prior beliefs.