On the Determinants of Scholastic Performance in Five Asian Countries

Abstract

This paper takes an efficiency analysis perspective to analyze, on the basis of the data of the 2009 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey, the determinants of scholastic performance in five Asian countries (Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Thailand). In the first stage, the huge amount of information available in the PISA survey on the production of education is aggregated via the use of correspondence analysis. To measure efficiency, a stochastic production frontier approach is then adopted and efficiency is estimated at the individual (student) level. Finally, the factors affecting this efficiency are analyzed via an ordinary least squares regression and, using the so-called Shapley decomposition, an attempt is made to determine the exact impact on efficiency of the various explanatory variables that were introduced.