Birthplace favoritism and quality of education

Vu, Tien Manh and Yamada, Hiroyuki (2021): Birthplace favoritism and quality of education.

Abstract

We investigated the long-term effects of birthplace favoritism by top-ranking politicians on the quality of education in Vietnam. We used over 1 million test scores from the 2009 and 2014 Vietnamese national university entrance examinations. We examined both the different timing of political terms and the total years of birthplace favoritism. Using the school fixed effects, we found that birthplace favoritism did not have any significant impacts, regardless of the timing and duration of such favoritism. The results also suggest that national entrance examinations were unaffected by birthplace favoritism up to 2014.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Favoritism; Test scores; Education; Regional favoritism; Vietnam
• Subjects: H - Public Economics > H7 - State and Local Government ; Intergovernmental Relations > H75 - State and Local Government: Health ; Education ; Welfare ; Public Pensions; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I2 - Education and Research Institutions > I21 - Analysis of Education; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I2 - Education and Research Institutions > I28 - Government Policy

References

Chen, T., Kung, J.K., & Ma, C. (2020). Long live Keju! The persistent effects of China’s civil examination system. The Economic Journal, 130(631), 2030–2064. https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/ueaa043

Do, Q., Nguyen, K.-T., & Tran, A. N. (2017). One mandarin benefits the whole clan: Hometown favoritism in an authoritarian regime. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 9(4), 1–29. https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20130472

Hodler, R., & Raschky, P. A. (2014). Regional favoritism. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 129, 995–1033. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qju004

Kramon, E., & Posner, D. N. (2016). Ethnic favoritism in education in Kenya. Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 11, 1–58. https://doi.org/doi:10.1561/100.00015005

Vu, T. M., & Yamada, H. (forthcoming). Firms and regional favouritism. Economics of Transition and Institutional Change. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecot.12308

Vu, T. M., & Yamada, H. (2021). Impacts of the 1075–1919 Vietnamese imperial examinations on contemporary quantity and quality of education. Unpublished paper.