A lack of longitudinal data prevents many countries from estimating dynamic models and, thus, from obtaining valuable evidence for policymaking in the field of education. This is the case of Spain, where recent education reforms have targeted secondary schools, but their design has been based on incomplete information regarding the evolution of student performance and far from robust evidence concerning just when educational inequalities are generated. This paper addresses the absence of longitudinal data required for performing such analyses by using a dynamic model with repeated cross-sectional data. We are able to link the reading competencies of students from the same cohort that participated in two international assessments at different ages (9/10 and 15/16) and so identify when educational gaps – in terms of gender, socio-economic status and place of birth – emerge. In addition, we provide new evidence on the effect on achievement of the main policy used in Spain for levelling the performance of secondary school students, namely, grade retention. Our results suggest that educational inequalities in Spain originate in lower educational levels. After controlling for reverse causality, the negative relationship between grade retention and performance at the lower secondary school level persists.

The impact of education on participation in leisure activities is of particular relevance when analysing education and educational policies and for understanding leisure and leisure policy design. Yet, despite advances in the measurement and analysis of education, studies of the effects of education on leisure activities have not been especially exhaustive nor have they been sufficiently integrated with leisure studies. We seek to rectify these shortcomings, by analysing the effects of education on leisure participation in Spain based on the study of individuals’ time-use patterns. Results highlight the impact of education on the time dedicated to activities that have beneficial individual and social outcomes, including cultural and sports activities, and reading books and the press. We demonstrate the potential of integrating analyses of education and leisure for understanding the benefits of participation in a greater diversity of leisure activities and for developing policies that strengthen the repertoire of leisure options.

Research in the social sciences has focused extensively on the relationship between family background, educational attainment and social destination, on the one hand, and on the processes of skills creation and skills use, on the other. This paper brings these two branches of the literature together by examining the correlation between a range of social factors. The methodology we adopt provides a comprehensive approach to the study of the channels through which literacy skills are acquired, taking into account the interrelation of family background, educational attainment, and the use of skills at work and at home. We use the Programme of International Assessment of Adult Competences (PIAAC) dataset and apply a structural equation model (SEM). Our results show that family background and education play an important role in the configuration of adult skills and skill practices. Unequal family access to resources has a strong impact at later stages in life and strongly affects educational attainment and skills outcomes. Additionally, skills use has a positive and direct impact on adult skills.

Countries differ in their upper secondary school systems in a way that some require their students to choose a specialization from a set of areas – typically natural sciences, economic sciences, humanities or arts – and follow that specialization for the course of their upper secondary education years (e.g. Portugal, Spain, Sweden) whereas by contrast, others including Finland, Denmark or the U.S. follow a general curriculum where students, albeit being able to choose between different classes in distinct areas, are not required to follow a single specialization and thus, receive a more general education. Because countries only follow one system or the other, a cross-country analysis is required to estimate the possible effects of these institutional differences. An international differences-in-differences approach is chosen to account for country heterogeneity and unobserved factors influencing student outcomes, by using both PISA and PIAAC data for 20 different countries. The regression results suggest that the choice of one system or the other does not account for differences across countries in either the mean performance or the inequality of students’ test scores.

In this work, we explore the relations between sales growth and a set of innovation indicators that capture the different sources, modes and results of the innovative activity undertaken within firms. We exploit a rich panel on innovation activity of Spanish manufacturing firms, reporting detailed CIS-type information continuously over the period 2004-2011. Standard GMM- panel estimates of the average effect of innovation activities reveal significant and positive effect for internal R&D, while no effect is found for external sourcing of knowledge (external R&D, acquisition of embodied and disembodied technologies) as well as for output of innovation (process and product innovation). However, fixed-effects quantile regressions reveal that innovation activities, apart from process innovation and disembodied technical change, display a positive effect on high-growth performance. Finally, we find evidence of super-modularity of the growth function, revealing complementarities of internal R&D with product innovation, and between product and process innovation.

Labor market dynamics and the expectations of finding a job are believed to be strong determinants of individuals’ educational decisions. Thus, the academic performance and permanency of students in the school system are closely related to their perceptions of unemployment. The impact of high unemployment rates on schooling decisions may operate through, at least, two effects: a “family” effect, which urges individuals to dropout owing to limited access to educational resources, and a “local labor market” effect that encourages them to remain in school. In this paper we, specifically, analyze the impact of a household’s labor market situation and the effect of local labor unemployment on i) the risk of early school dropout and ii) academic performance, which typically declines before the decision to dropout is taken. These relations are assessed via a set of multilevel linear and logistic regression analyses using PISA 2006, 2009 and 2012 microdata. Results suggest that both parental unemployment and local labor market unemployment increase the risk of school dropout by reducing student academic performance. However, the negative “family” and “local labor market” effects seem to decrease as labor market conditions worsen.