Kawarazaki, Hikaru;
(2025)
Essays on Economics of Education and Crime.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
This thesis documents the educational trajectories of children and interactions with peers, and the resulting effects on academic, criminal, and labour market outcomes. Chapter 1 examines the effects of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) on children's labour market outcomes in adulthood, exploiting regional differences in expansion speeds of childcare institutions in Japan. It finds a substantial positive effect of ECEC on income, which is mediated by an increase in wages that is triggered by improved educational attainment. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on a primary school. Chapter 2 evaluates the effectiveness of a globally popular method of self-learning at the right level in improving learning outcomes in a developing country. Using a randomised controlled trial in Bangladesh, it finds that the programme has substantial improvements in cognitive abilities and catch-up effects in terms of non-cognitive abilities. Chapter 3 explores the effects of speed competition in classrooms on young pupils' learning outcomes. Leveraging students' daily progress data from the second chapter, it shows overall positive peer effects on problem-solving time and scores. The effects are stronger among peers with similar abilities, without negatively affecting others. Chapter 4 turns to a secondary school. It examines the interplay between education and juvenile crime, exploiting the newly linked administrative data on crime and education in England. It studies the extent to which criminality spreads within schools. Exploiting the quasi-random timing of school transfers of students with a criminal record, the chapter finds that exposure to a criminal peer increases the peer's probability of starting a criminal career.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Essays on Economics of Education and Crime |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2025. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/deed.en). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| Keywords: | Educational trajectories, Self-learning, Juvenile crime, Peer effects |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Economics |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10217754 |
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