Daniel Rees (economist)

Biography

Research

• The abolition of tracking in American schools might strongly increase the educational achievements of lower-track students, though this increase would come at the expense of upper-track students.
• Changing some school district leave policies, e.g. increasing the number of unused leave days that teachers can cumulate and "cash in" at retirement may at the same time benefit teachers, students and tax payers.
• Class load characteristics, e.g. class size, number of classes taught, the share of class time spent in areas outside a teacher's certification area - affect job turnover among high school teachers.
• The effects of IQ on earnings in the U.S. are strongly overstated in the absence of controls for family, socioeconomic background, and academic performance, with aspirations, socialization and role models possibly also playing major roles.
• Rees, Benjamin Hansen and D. Mark Anderson fail to find any evidence that the legalization of medical marijuana leads to increased marijuana use among teenagers in the U.S.
• For juveniles, increases in violent crime arrests reduce the likelihood of assault among males, of stealing among females, and of selling drugs for both genders, while local poverty and unemployment raise the propensity to commit crimes, and in particular family poverty increases males' propensity to commit robbery, burglary, and theft as well as females' propensity to commit assault and burglary; as these results show that juveniles do respond to incentives and sanctions, employment opportunities, increased family income and stricter deterrence may be effective in reducing juvenile crime.