IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v65y2008i2p318-333.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

School size and youth violence

Author

Listed:
  • Leung, Ambrose
  • Ferris, J. Stephen

Abstract

This paper investigates one aspect of the relationship between school size and education outcomes-- whether school size is associated with youth violence. The importance of this question is underlined by the prevalent view that large school sizes are needed to realize production scale economies. Such a consensus would need to be revisited if such cost savings were counterbalanced by students' growing frustration, higher dropout rates and student violence. Recently the effect of school size on school violence has been analyzed with data collected from U.S. schools. However, the use of school centered data may create its own "selection bias". A main goal of this paper is to retest the hypothesis on a micro-database centered on youth. Using a sample of inner city Montreal males, self-reported incidents of violent behaviour are used to see if school size has an independent effect on youth violence. Other demographic characteristics are included as controls.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Leung, Ambrose & Ferris, J. Stephen, 2008. "School size and youth violence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 318-333, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:65:y:2008:i:2:p:318-333
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167-2681(06)00148-X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:fth:prinin:366 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. David Card & Alan B. Krueger, 1996. "School Resources and Student Outcomes: An Overview of the Literature and New Evidence from North and South Carolina," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 31-50, Fall.
    3. Mazerolle, Paul & Burton, Velmer S. & Cullen, Francis T. & Evans, T. David & Payne, Gary L., 2000. "Strain, anger, and delinquent adaptations Specifying general strain theory," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 89-101.
    4. Barrow, Lisa, 2002. "School choice through relocation: evidence from the Washington, D.C. area," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 155-189, November.
    5. J. S. Ferris & E. G. West, 2004. "Economies of scale, school violence and the optimal size of schools," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(15), pages 1677-1684.
    6. Eric D. Gould & Bruce A. Weinberg & David B. Mustard, 2002. "Crime Rates And Local Labor Market Opportunities In The United States: 1979-1997," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(1), pages 45-61, February.
    7. Thomas J. Nechyba, 2000. "Mobility, Targeting, and Private-School Vouchers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 130-146, March.
    8. Hanushek, Eric A, 1986. "The Economics of Schooling: Production and Efficiency in Public Schools," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 24(3), pages 1141-1177, September.
    9. Ambrose Leung, 2002. "Delinquency, Social Institutions, and Capital Accumulation," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 158(3), pages 420-440, September.
    10. David Card & Alan Krueger, 1996. "School Resources and Student Outcomes: An Overview of the Literature and New Evidence from North and South Carolina," Working Papers 745, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    11. J. Stephen Ferris & Edwin G. West, 2000. "Education Vouchers, Dropouts, and the Peer Group Problem 1," Carleton Economic Papers 00-05, Carleton University, Department of Economics, revised Apr 2002.
    12. J. Stephen Ferris & Edwin G. West, 2002. "Education Vouchers, the Peer Group Problem, and the Question of Dropouts," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 68(4), pages 774-793, April.
    13. Jeffrey Grogger, 1997. "Local Violence and Educational Attainment," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 32(4), pages 659-682.
    14. Kenny, Lawrence W., 1982. "Economies of scale in schooling," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 1-24, February.
    15. Landon, Stuart, 1999. "Education costs and institutional structure," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 327-345, June.
    16. Sandra E. Black, 1998. "Measuring the value of better schools," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 4(Mar), pages 87-94.
    17. Summers, Anita A & Wolfe, Barbara L, 1977. "Do Schools Make a Difference?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(4), pages 639-652, September.
    18. K. Chakraborty & B. Biswas & WC. Lewis, 2000. "Economies of scale in public education: an econometric analysis," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 18(2), pages 238-247, April.
    19. Epple, Dennis & Romano, Richard E, 1998. "Competition between Private and Public Schools, Vouchers, and Peer-Group Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(1), pages 33-62, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tom Coupe & Anna Olefir & Juan Diego Alonso, 2011. "Is Optimization an Opportunity? An Assessment of the Impact of Class Size and School Size on the Performance of Ukrainian Secondary Schools," Discussion Papers 44, Kyiv School of Economics.
    2. Anderson, D. Mark & Hansen, Benjamin & Walker, Mary Beth, 2013. "The minimum dropout age and student victimization," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 66-74.
    3. Wei, Hsi-Sheng & Williams, James Herbert & Chen, Ji-Kang & Chang, Hsiu-Yu, 2010. "The effects of individual characteristics, teacher practice, and school organizational factors on students' bullying: A multilevel analysis of public middle schools in Taiwan," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 137-143, January.
    4. Schwartz, Amy Ellen & Stiefel, Leanna & Wiswall, Matthew, 2016. "Are all schools created equal? Learning environments in small and large public high schools in New York City," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 272-290.
    5. Humlum, Maria Knoth & Smith, Nina, 2015. "Long-term effects of school size on students’ outcomes," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 28-43.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Muharrem Yeşilırmak, 2018. "Decreasing average cost in private schools, existence of majority voting equilibrium, and a policy analysis for Turkey," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 22(1), pages 1-24, June.
    2. Dennis N. Epple & Richard Romano, 2003. "Neighborhood Schools, Choice, and the Distribution of Educational Benefits," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of School Choice, pages 227-286, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Christopher C. Klein, 2007. "Efficiency versus Effectiveness: Interpreting Education Production Studies," Working Papers 200703, Middle Tennessee State University, Department of Economics and Finance.
    4. Millimet, Daniel L. & Rangaprasad, Vasudha, 2007. "Strategic competition amongst public schools," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 199-219, March.
    5. Walton, Nina, 2010. "The price of admission: Who gets into private school, and how much do they pay?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 738-750, October.
    6. Jonathan Guryan, 2004. "Desegregation and Black Dropout Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 919-943, September.
    7. Do Won Kwak & Hyejin Ku, 2013. "Together or Separate: Disentangling the Effects of Single-Sex Schooling from the Effects of Single-Sex Schools," Discussion Papers Series 487, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    8. Saïd Hanchane & Tarek Mostafa, 2007. "School Choice : income, Peer effect and the formation of Inequalities," Working Papers halshs-00009533, HAL.
    9. Tarek Mostafa & Saïd Hanchane, 2007. "Educational Quality, Communities, and Public School Choice: a Theoretical Analysis," Working Papers halshs-00177630, HAL.
    10. O'Shaughnessy, Terry, 2007. "Parental choice and school quality when peer and scale effects matter," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 501-515, August.
    11. Patrick Bayer & Fernando Ferreira & Robert McMillan, 2007. "A Unified Framework for Measuring Preferences for Schools and Neighborhoods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(4), pages 588-638, August.
    12. Alan B. Krueger, 2002. "Inequality, Too Much of a Good Thing," Working Papers 845, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    13. David Brasington & Don Haurin, 2005. "Capitalization of Parent, School, and Peer Group Components of School Quality into House Price," Departmental Working Papers 2005-04, Department of Economics, Louisiana State University.
    14. Cécile Bonneau, 2020. "The Concentration of investment in education in the US (1970-2018)," Working Papers halshs-02875965, HAL.
    15. Gordon Winston & David Zimmerman, 2004. "Peer Effects in Higher Education," NBER Chapters, in: College Choices: The Economics of Where to Go, When to Go, and How to Pay For It, pages 395-424, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. De Fraja, Gianni & Landeras, Pedro, 2006. "Could do better: The effectiveness of incentives and competition in schools," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1-2), pages 189-213, January.
    17. Enami, Ali & Alm, James & Aranda, Rodrigo, 2021. "Labor versus capital in the provision of public services: Estimating the marginal products of inputs in the production of student outcomes✰," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    18. repec:pri:cepsud:87krueger is not listed on IDEAS
    19. repec:pri:cepsud:180rothstein is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Weili Ding & Steven F. Lehrer, 2007. "Do Peers Affect Student Achievement in China's Secondary Schools?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(2), pages 300-312, May.
    21. Dustmann, Christian & Ku, Hyejin & Kwak, Do Won, 2018. "Why Are Single-Sex Schools Successful?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 79-99.
    22. Epple, Dennis & Figlio, David & Romano, Richard, 2004. "Competition between private and public schools: testing stratification and pricing predictions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(7-8), pages 1215-1245, July.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:65:y:2008:i:2:p:318-333. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jebo .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.