PurposeThe study's objective is to estimate the association of specific perceived employer-pr... more PurposeThe study's objective is to estimate the association of specific perceived employer-provided benefits on employees' intention to leave in different age cohorts during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Informed by the psychological theories of ageing, the authors propose three age-cohort-specific hypotheses in three motivational domains: security and health benefits, flexible work arrangement and education-related benefits.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use a large survey of employees in Estonia (n = 7,209) conducted in 2020 and test the association of specific benefits and their interactions with age on employees' intention to leave.FindingsThe results show that older cohorts are generally less prone to leave their jobs. Benefits that employers could use during the COVID-19 crisis generally had negative associations with the intention to leave, but age-specific differences were negligible; only the perceived provision of flexible work arrangements reduc...
Large-scale Assessments in Education, Feb 27, 2021
Contemporary society is especially demanding in terms of both education in general and education ... more Contemporary society is especially demanding in terms of both education in general and education for social and political participation in particular. This study aims to investigate the opportunities and challenges of civics and citizenship education to provide the knowledge and practices for political participation in the bilingual education system of Estonia. Our ambition is a twofold contribution to the literature. First, as Knowles and McCafferty-Wright (2015) have identified, there is a need for additional research
Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the Estonian active labor market re... more Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the Estonian active labor market reform in 2016, which introduced a new policy concerning employment rehabilitation services. As a research question, we investigate how such services may have affected the employment outcomes of people with mental and/or physical impairments. Methods Our sample includes 9,244 people from 2016 to 2020, with a mean age of 46 years. Due to multiple entries to the services, we have more than 11,000 episodes, and monthly panel property increases the number of observations by over 100,000. We use propensity score matching in combination with fixed effects panel regressions to analyze how the completion of the scheduled rehabilitation plan affected monthly employment duration. Results Our results indicate that completing the rehabilitation service yields on average 2.6 months longer post-rehabilitation employment, compared to matched individuals who discontinued the service. This effect was large...
Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the Estonian active labor market re... more Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the Estonian active labor market reform in 2016, which introduced a new policy concerning vocational rehabilitation services. As a research question, we investigate how such services may have affected the employment outcomes of people with mental and/or physical impairments. Methods Our sample includes 9244 people from 2016 to 2020, with a mean age of 46 years. Due to multiple entries to the services, we have more than 11,000 cases with over 100,000 monthly observations. We use propensity score matching in combination with fixed effects panel regressions to analyze how the completion of the scheduled rehabilitation plan affected monthly employment duration. Results Our findings indicate that completing the rehabilitation service results on average in 2.6 months longer post-rehabilitation employment, compared to matched individuals who discontinued the service. This effect was larger when already employed and male participants entered the service, while weaker effects were observed in the case of individuals with only mental disabilities. Conclusions Overall, we conclude that while completing the scheduled rehabilitation plan has a positive effect on employment outcomes, still maintaining employment status seems to remain a challenge, based on the relatively modest effect sizes. Thus, we question the economic arguments behind the reform.
A comparative analysis of financial literacy levels and initiatives among students in five European countries
Research in Comparative and International Education, 2022
Given the expected advantages for individuals and societies, financial literacy is high on the po... more Given the expected advantages for individuals and societies, financial literacy is high on the policy agenda in many countries. This paper reports the results from a unique survey conducted on a sample of 13–16-year-old students in five European countries, aimed at measuring and comparing their level of financial literacy skills. The results indicate significant differences in the level of financial literacy across countries that are interpreted in the light of the differences in the countries’ educational policies and experiences with financial education. The findings suggest that supra-national coordinated action is needed to guarantee better financial knowledge and safeguard economic stability in future crises. JEL-classification: I21; G53; O57; O16.
Will Choice Hurt? Compared to What? School Choice Experiment in Estonia
TTU Economic Research Series, Jan 31, 2014
This article presents the empirical analysis of the effects of a school choice policy in Estonia.... more This article presents the empirical analysis of the effects of a school choice policy in Estonia. The article shows that relying on markets and giving autonomy to the schools over student selection will produce admission tests, even at the elementary school level. This article’s contribution is to show that a school choice policy experiment with schools free to select students will produce between-school segregation effects based on residential and background characteristics. However, the interpretation of these effects is complex because, when compared with the premarket, residential choice model, it diminishes segregation based on income and family socioeconomic status.
Coordination, Commitment and Cartel: Guilds in Medieval Reval XIII-XV Century
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2006
... Distinct cultures provided different focal points while distinct social processes provided di... more ... Distinct cultures provided different focal points while distinct social processes provided different initial networks for information transmission. ... Behavioral norms didn't only result from the games nobility played rules of the tournaments or dancing classes, but also the schras and ...
Cooperative Norms and Defection in Prisoner's Dilemma Game: Analytic Narratives on Evolution of Strategic Non Cooperative Behavior in the Network
The evolutionary game theory and network segregation models are used for explaining strategic cha... more The evolutionary game theory and network segregation models are used for explaining strategic change in micro behavior. Simulations are used for modelling strategic responses based on interviews. Prisoners' dilemma situation is used in infinitely iterated games, where randomness is created through exogenous shock of opening the network to "aliens". Also the number of connections is modified and different discount factors are used. Consequently it is found that large and small networks differ by behavioral strategies: in large networks individuals are more self-regarding and reciprocal only to benevolent behavior; in small networks people rely on cooperative social norms.
This article aims to show the segregating effect of the market-like matching of students and scho... more This article aims to show the segregating effect of the market-like matching of students and schools at the basic school level. The natural experiment case is Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. The current school choice mechanism applied in this case is based on entrance tests. There are increasingly over-subscribed intra-catchment area public schools, where high reputations are reinforced by publicly reported league tables. The current mechanism has resulted in parental strategies of prep-schooling and the manipulation of addresses. Logistic regression results based on survey data assure that, under competitive entrance, families' educational strategies and background characteristics determine the success of admission to schools with good reputations. Understanding this heterogeneous strategic behaviour is important for the effective design of school choice mechanisms.
In recent years, the degree of choice in education systems has increased in most countries. Still... more In recent years, the degree of choice in education systems has increased in most countries. Still, the variation of choice policies across countries is substantial. The authors ask under what combinations of conditions (i.e. institutional features of education systems) choice policy succeeds in balancing educational efficiency and equity. Using the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, they investigate the impact of seven institutional conditions in 20 European countries. Those seven conditions are identified in school choice literature as relevant in explaining variations in educational efficiency and equity. The analysis shows that there are multiple causal paths to good policy outcome. The main contribution of this article is to show that 'choice' is an INUS condition (i.e. an insufficient but necessary part of an unnecessary but sufficient combination of conditions) and that 'no tracking' is a necessary condition for educational efficiency and equity. In addition, the authors show that 'good management' and 'competition' of schools contribute to good educational outcomes only in choicetolerant countries.
We show that principal component analysis enables the construction of geographic divisions of Eur... more We show that principal component analysis enables the construction of geographic divisions of European social models—Nordic, Anglo-Saxon, Mediterranean, Continental, and Postcommunist, that basically follow Esping-Andersen's (1990) welfare regime typology. Instead of Esping-Andersen's criteria of "decommodification" and "stratification," which create typologies of the welfare states—liberal, conservative-corporatist, and social democratic, we compose "social protection" and "commodification" indexes. However, as expected, social-democratic Nordic countries have relatively low "commodification" and high "social protection" scores compared to the other countries. There are some outliers relative to existing typologies—Hungary and the Czech Republic are connected to the Mediterraneans, while Portugal is grouped with the liberal Anglo-Saxons.
The evolution of non‐cooperative behaviour: the case of post‐transitional Estonia
Baltic Journal of Management, 2009
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explain the emergence of non‐cooperative behaviour after t... more PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explain the emergence of non‐cooperative behaviour after the economic transition in Estonia.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses a combined research design, in that evolutionary game theory and network segregation models are enriched with semi‐structured interviews. Simulations are used to deal with analytical complexity; in this case a prisoners' dilemma situation is used and randomness is created through the exogenous shock of opening the network to “aliens”.FindingsConsequently, it is found that individuals in large and small communities differ in their behavioural strategies: in an open community, players are more self‐interested and reciprocate only benevolent behaviour; in a regular community, people rely on cooperative social norms. Case specific information leads to the suggestion that in open networks people behave cooperatively only in teams of up to four members. Increasing the random connections in a network makes people us...
In the first 20 years of the market economy in Estonia, the public school market was decentralise... more In the first 20 years of the market economy in Estonia, the public school market was decentralised in Tallinn. Recently, a hybrid market was established by centralising the school allocations to comprehensive schools and also allowing some selective schools to autonomously select students for some groups. We contribute to mechanism design literature by studying the centralised clearing-house used in Tallinn – the Tallinn mechanism. By using genetic algorithms, we show that, the Tallinn mechanism incentivises families to manipulate their preference revelation by reporting only a few schools and not always from the top of their preference list. Also we see that the expected utility in the Tallinn mechanism is higher compared to the widely used Deferred-Acceptance mechanism, although the number of unassigned students is also higher.
PurposeThe study's objective is to estimate the association of specific perceived employer-pr... more PurposeThe study's objective is to estimate the association of specific perceived employer-provided benefits on employees' intention to leave in different age cohorts during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Informed by the psychological theories of ageing, the authors propose three age-cohort-specific hypotheses in three motivational domains: security and health benefits, flexible work arrangement and education-related benefits.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use a large survey of employees in Estonia (n = 7,209) conducted in 2020 and test the association of specific benefits and their interactions with age on employees' intention to leave.FindingsThe results show that older cohorts are generally less prone to leave their jobs. Benefits that employers could use during the COVID-19 crisis generally had negative associations with the intention to leave, but age-specific differences were negligible; only the perceived provision of flexible work arrangements reduc...
Large-scale Assessments in Education, Feb 27, 2021
Contemporary society is especially demanding in terms of both education in general and education ... more Contemporary society is especially demanding in terms of both education in general and education for social and political participation in particular. This study aims to investigate the opportunities and challenges of civics and citizenship education to provide the knowledge and practices for political participation in the bilingual education system of Estonia. Our ambition is a twofold contribution to the literature. First, as Knowles and McCafferty-Wright (2015) have identified, there is a need for additional research
Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the Estonian active labor market re... more Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the Estonian active labor market reform in 2016, which introduced a new policy concerning employment rehabilitation services. As a research question, we investigate how such services may have affected the employment outcomes of people with mental and/or physical impairments. Methods Our sample includes 9,244 people from 2016 to 2020, with a mean age of 46 years. Due to multiple entries to the services, we have more than 11,000 episodes, and monthly panel property increases the number of observations by over 100,000. We use propensity score matching in combination with fixed effects panel regressions to analyze how the completion of the scheduled rehabilitation plan affected monthly employment duration. Results Our results indicate that completing the rehabilitation service yields on average 2.6 months longer post-rehabilitation employment, compared to matched individuals who discontinued the service. This effect was large...
Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the Estonian active labor market re... more Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the Estonian active labor market reform in 2016, which introduced a new policy concerning vocational rehabilitation services. As a research question, we investigate how such services may have affected the employment outcomes of people with mental and/or physical impairments. Methods Our sample includes 9244 people from 2016 to 2020, with a mean age of 46 years. Due to multiple entries to the services, we have more than 11,000 cases with over 100,000 monthly observations. We use propensity score matching in combination with fixed effects panel regressions to analyze how the completion of the scheduled rehabilitation plan affected monthly employment duration. Results Our findings indicate that completing the rehabilitation service results on average in 2.6 months longer post-rehabilitation employment, compared to matched individuals who discontinued the service. This effect was larger when already employed and male participants entered the service, while weaker effects were observed in the case of individuals with only mental disabilities. Conclusions Overall, we conclude that while completing the scheduled rehabilitation plan has a positive effect on employment outcomes, still maintaining employment status seems to remain a challenge, based on the relatively modest effect sizes. Thus, we question the economic arguments behind the reform.
A comparative analysis of financial literacy levels and initiatives among students in five European countries
Research in Comparative and International Education, 2022
Given the expected advantages for individuals and societies, financial literacy is high on the po... more Given the expected advantages for individuals and societies, financial literacy is high on the policy agenda in many countries. This paper reports the results from a unique survey conducted on a sample of 13–16-year-old students in five European countries, aimed at measuring and comparing their level of financial literacy skills. The results indicate significant differences in the level of financial literacy across countries that are interpreted in the light of the differences in the countries’ educational policies and experiences with financial education. The findings suggest that supra-national coordinated action is needed to guarantee better financial knowledge and safeguard economic stability in future crises. JEL-classification: I21; G53; O57; O16.
Will Choice Hurt? Compared to What? School Choice Experiment in Estonia
TTU Economic Research Series, Jan 31, 2014
This article presents the empirical analysis of the effects of a school choice policy in Estonia.... more This article presents the empirical analysis of the effects of a school choice policy in Estonia. The article shows that relying on markets and giving autonomy to the schools over student selection will produce admission tests, even at the elementary school level. This article’s contribution is to show that a school choice policy experiment with schools free to select students will produce between-school segregation effects based on residential and background characteristics. However, the interpretation of these effects is complex because, when compared with the premarket, residential choice model, it diminishes segregation based on income and family socioeconomic status.
Coordination, Commitment and Cartel: Guilds in Medieval Reval XIII-XV Century
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2006
... Distinct cultures provided different focal points while distinct social processes provided di... more ... Distinct cultures provided different focal points while distinct social processes provided different initial networks for information transmission. ... Behavioral norms didn't only result from the games nobility played rules of the tournaments or dancing classes, but also the schras and ...
Cooperative Norms and Defection in Prisoner's Dilemma Game: Analytic Narratives on Evolution of Strategic Non Cooperative Behavior in the Network
The evolutionary game theory and network segregation models are used for explaining strategic cha... more The evolutionary game theory and network segregation models are used for explaining strategic change in micro behavior. Simulations are used for modelling strategic responses based on interviews. Prisoners' dilemma situation is used in infinitely iterated games, where randomness is created through exogenous shock of opening the network to "aliens". Also the number of connections is modified and different discount factors are used. Consequently it is found that large and small networks differ by behavioral strategies: in large networks individuals are more self-regarding and reciprocal only to benevolent behavior; in small networks people rely on cooperative social norms.
This article aims to show the segregating effect of the market-like matching of students and scho... more This article aims to show the segregating effect of the market-like matching of students and schools at the basic school level. The natural experiment case is Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. The current school choice mechanism applied in this case is based on entrance tests. There are increasingly over-subscribed intra-catchment area public schools, where high reputations are reinforced by publicly reported league tables. The current mechanism has resulted in parental strategies of prep-schooling and the manipulation of addresses. Logistic regression results based on survey data assure that, under competitive entrance, families' educational strategies and background characteristics determine the success of admission to schools with good reputations. Understanding this heterogeneous strategic behaviour is important for the effective design of school choice mechanisms.
In recent years, the degree of choice in education systems has increased in most countries. Still... more In recent years, the degree of choice in education systems has increased in most countries. Still, the variation of choice policies across countries is substantial. The authors ask under what combinations of conditions (i.e. institutional features of education systems) choice policy succeeds in balancing educational efficiency and equity. Using the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, they investigate the impact of seven institutional conditions in 20 European countries. Those seven conditions are identified in school choice literature as relevant in explaining variations in educational efficiency and equity. The analysis shows that there are multiple causal paths to good policy outcome. The main contribution of this article is to show that 'choice' is an INUS condition (i.e. an insufficient but necessary part of an unnecessary but sufficient combination of conditions) and that 'no tracking' is a necessary condition for educational efficiency and equity. In addition, the authors show that 'good management' and 'competition' of schools contribute to good educational outcomes only in choicetolerant countries.
We show that principal component analysis enables the construction of geographic divisions of Eur... more We show that principal component analysis enables the construction of geographic divisions of European social models—Nordic, Anglo-Saxon, Mediterranean, Continental, and Postcommunist, that basically follow Esping-Andersen's (1990) welfare regime typology. Instead of Esping-Andersen's criteria of "decommodification" and "stratification," which create typologies of the welfare states—liberal, conservative-corporatist, and social democratic, we compose "social protection" and "commodification" indexes. However, as expected, social-democratic Nordic countries have relatively low "commodification" and high "social protection" scores compared to the other countries. There are some outliers relative to existing typologies—Hungary and the Czech Republic are connected to the Mediterraneans, while Portugal is grouped with the liberal Anglo-Saxons.
The evolution of non‐cooperative behaviour: the case of post‐transitional Estonia
Baltic Journal of Management, 2009
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explain the emergence of non‐cooperative behaviour after t... more PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explain the emergence of non‐cooperative behaviour after the economic transition in Estonia.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses a combined research design, in that evolutionary game theory and network segregation models are enriched with semi‐structured interviews. Simulations are used to deal with analytical complexity; in this case a prisoners' dilemma situation is used and randomness is created through the exogenous shock of opening the network to “aliens”.FindingsConsequently, it is found that individuals in large and small communities differ in their behavioural strategies: in an open community, players are more self‐interested and reciprocate only benevolent behaviour; in a regular community, people rely on cooperative social norms. Case specific information leads to the suggestion that in open networks people behave cooperatively only in teams of up to four members. Increasing the random connections in a network makes people us...
In the first 20 years of the market economy in Estonia, the public school market was decentralise... more In the first 20 years of the market economy in Estonia, the public school market was decentralised in Tallinn. Recently, a hybrid market was established by centralising the school allocations to comprehensive schools and also allowing some selective schools to autonomously select students for some groups. We contribute to mechanism design literature by studying the centralised clearing-house used in Tallinn – the Tallinn mechanism. By using genetic algorithms, we show that, the Tallinn mechanism incentivises families to manipulate their preference revelation by reporting only a few schools and not always from the top of their preference list. Also we see that the expected utility in the Tallinn mechanism is higher compared to the widely used Deferred-Acceptance mechanism, although the number of unassigned students is also higher.
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