nep-edu New Economics Papers
on Education
Issue of 2018‒03‒19
twenty-one papers chosen by
João Carlos Correia Leitão
Universidade da Beira Interior

  1. The impact of high school financial education on financial knowledge and choices: evidence from a randomized trial in Spain By Olympia Bover; Laura Hospido; Ernesto Villanueva
  2. When does money stick in education? Evidence from a kinked grant rule By Saastamoinen, Antti; Kortelainen, Mika
  3. Competitive screening and information transmission By Bó, Inácio Guerberoff Lanari; Ko, Chiu Yu
  4. The economics of university dropouts and delayed graduation: a survey By Aina, Carmen; Baici, Eliana; Casalone, Giorgia; Pastore, Francesco
  5. Can female role models reduce the gender gap in science? Evidence from classroom interventions in French high schools By Thomas Breda; Julien Grenet; Marion Monnet; Clémentine Van Effenterre
  6. Uma Análise econométrica do Programa um Computador por Aluno By Alex Felipe Rodrigues Lima; Adolfo Sachsida; Alexandre Xavier Ywata de Carvalho
  7. Poor Little Children: The Socio economic Gap in Parental Responses to School Disadvantage By Inés Berniell; Ricardo Estrada
  8. The Effect of Education on Mortality and Health: Evidence from a Schooling Expansion in Romania By Ofer Malamud; Andreea Mitrut; Cristian Pop-Eleches
  9. Infant Health, Cognitive Performance and Earnings: Evidence from Inception of the Welfare State in Sweden By Bhalotra, S.;; Karlsson, M.;; Nilsson, T.;; Schwarz, N.;
  10. Changing Parental Characteristics and Aggregate Educational Attainment By Christopher Herrington; Adam Blandin
  11. The Labor Market Effects of an Educational Expansion. A Theoretical Model with Applications to Brazil By David Jaume
  12. Determinantes da Evasão nos Cursos de Graduação da FACEU-FG By Adriana Moura Guimarães; Sandro Eduardo Monsueto
  13. Learning outside the factory: the impact of technological change on the rise of adult education in nineteenth-century France By Claude Diebolt; Charlotte Le Chapelain; Audrey Rose Menard
  14. Spiritual Practices and Dispositional Optimism in an Underprivileged Population By Cid, Alejandro; Arrieta, Gonzalo; Ponce De León, María Mercedes; Stokes, Charles E.
  15. The Effects of Relative School Starting Age on Educational Outcomes in Finland By Kaila, Martti
  16. Immigration and the Future of the Welfare State in Europe By Alberto Alesina; Johann Harnoss; Hillel Rapoport
  17. The Effect of Application of Management Accounting To Performance through Strategy By Ali Muktiyanto
  18. Pathways out of poverty in rural Laos By Jonna P. Estudillo; Keijiro Otsuka; Saygnasak Seng-Arloun
  19. Does education enhance productivity in smallholder agriculture? Causal evidence from Malawi By Thomas Ferreira
  20. Mothers’ non-farm entrepreneurship and child secondary education in rural Ghana: By Janssens, Charlotte; Van den Broeck, Goedele; Maertens, Miet; Lambrecht, Isabel
  21. Education and economic growth in Cape and Natal colonies: learning from history By Biyase, Mduduzi

  1. By: Olympia Bover (Banco de España); Laura Hospido (Banco de España); Ernesto Villanueva (Banco de España)
    Abstract: We study how a 10-hour course about personal finance delivered in compulsory secondary education affects a wide range of student’s outcomes over a three months horizon. The contents of the course covered budgeting, banking relationship and saving vehicles, but also awareness about future outcomes. To obtain reliable estimates, we conducted a randomized field experiment where 3,000 9th grade students coming from 78 Spanish high schools received financial education at different points of the academic year. Right after the course, performance in standardized tests of financial knowledge increased by 16% of one standard deviation, and treated youths were more likely to become involved in financial matters at home and showed a higher degree of patience in hypothetical saving choices. An incentivized saving task conducted three months after delivering the course suggests that treated youths displayed more patient choices at various interest rates and maturities than a control group of 10th graders. The results of higher performance in financial test scores and the higher degree of patient choices in the incentivized saving task among the treated are statistically significant in strata with students with a relatively more disadvantaged background.
    Keywords: financial education, impact evaluation
    JEL: D14 D91 I22 J24
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bde:wpaper:1801&r=edu
  2. By: Saastamoinen, Antti; Kortelainen, Mika
    Abstract: We study the effects of intergovernmental grants on school spending within the Finnish system of high school education funding. The system allocates lump-sum intergovernmental grants to local education organizers using a kinked grant rule. Utilizing the quasi-experimental variation in grants given by the rule, we identify the effects of grants on municipal high school education expenditures. Our results indicate that grants stimulate spending while local tax rates or revenues do not seem to be responsive to grants, thus suggesting the presence of a typical flypaper effect. However, we also consider the possibility that grant responses might be heterogeneous among municipalities. Based on our heterogeneity results, the grant response is positively associated with the share of high school age population, while the higher share of elderly is related to a lower propensity to spend on education out of grant funding. This result is in line with the idea of intergenerational conflict in education spending preferences often presented in education finance literature.
    Keywords: intergovernmental transfers, flypaper effect, heterogeneous spending preferences, regression kink design, Local public economics, I22, H75, H73,
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fer:wpaper:102&r=edu
  3. By: Bó, Inácio Guerberoff Lanari; Ko, Chiu Yu
    Abstract: We consider a simple model of the competitive screening of students by schools and colleges. Students apply to schools which then perform costly screening procedures of the applicants to select those with high ability. Students who receive more than one offer may choose among those. Colleges select students and can observe the school which they attended. We show a channel through which students' preferences affect schools' screening decisions and outcomes: as schools increase the screening for high-ability students, a greater proportion of them is identified as such by multiple schools and are able to select one among them to attend. Schools' marginal gains from screening therefore depend on other schools' screenings and students' preferences. By focusing on the schools' screening choices (instead of the students' application decisions), we show how the competition for students between schools and colleges affect outcomes and students' welfare. We also show that, simply by observing which school a candidate attended, colleges can "free-ride" on the information produced by a fierce competition between schools for those students. Finally, we show that although colleges make full use of the information contained in the school a student attended, the extent to which students can improve the college that they are matched to by going to a (less desired) high-ranked school is fairly limited.
    Keywords: information transmission,college admissions,screening,rankings
    JEL: C78 D61 D83
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wzbmbh:spii2018202&r=edu
  4. By: Aina, Carmen; Baici, Eliana; Casalone, Giorgia; Pastore, Francesco
    Abstract: This survey organizes and discusses the theoretical and empirical literature on the determinants of university student achievements. According to the theoretical framework, the decision to invest in tertiary education is a sequential process made under gradually decreasing levels of uncertainty on education costs and future returns. Students, applying a learning by doing approach, update their information set each academic year and revise benefits and costs associated to tertiary education. Accordingly, they decide whether to continue university studies in order to get a degree or to withdraw. This university decisional process is discussed by clustering the determinants of university outcomes into four main categories - students’ characteristics, abilities and behavior; parental background and family networks; characteristics of the tertiary education system and its institutions; labor market performance - which are drawn from the empirical evidence. The policy advice resulting from the encompassing analysis is to provide an all-inclusive orientation activity for students, before they enroll at university. A complete understanding of the potential costs and benefits of this human capital investment can in fact reduce the risk of early withdrawal or delayed graduation.
    Keywords: university dropout,time-to-degree,tertiary education,human capital theory
    JEL: H52 I21 I22 I23 J13 J24
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:189&r=edu
  5. By: Thomas Breda (PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics); Julien Grenet (PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics); Marion Monnet (PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics); Clémentine Van Effenterre (Harvard Kennedy School - Harvard Kennedy School)
    Abstract: This paper reports the results of a large scale randomized experiment that was de- signed to assess whether a short in-class intervention by an external female role model can influence students’ attitudes towards science and contribute to a significant change in their choice of field of study. The intervention consists in a one hour, one off visit of a high school classroom by a volunteer female scientist. It is targeted to change students’ perceptions and attitudes towards scientific careers and the role of women in science, with the aim of ultimately reducing the gender gap in scientific studies. Using a random as- signment of the interventions to 10th and 12th grade classrooms during normal teaching hours, we find that exposure to female role models significantly reduces the prevalence of stereotypes associated with jobs in science, for both female and male students. While we find no significant effect of the classroom interventions on 10th grade students’ choice of high school track the following year, our results show a positive and significant impact of the intervention on the probability of applying and of being admitted to a selective science major in college among 12th grade students. This effect is essentially driven by high-achieving students and is larger for girls in relative terms. After the intervention, their probability to be enrolled in selective science programs after graduating from high school increases by 30 percent with respect to the baseline mean.
    Keywords: Role models,gender,Science,Stereotypes,Track choice
    Date: 2018–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-01713068&r=edu
  6. By: Alex Felipe Rodrigues Lima; Adolfo Sachsida; Alexandre Xavier Ywata de Carvalho
    Abstract: Este trabalho tem por objetivo avaliar o impacto do Programa Um Computador por Aluno (Prouca), do Fundo Nacional de Desenvolvimento da Educação (FNDE), no desempenho na Prova Brasil e no Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio (Enem), tanto em nível escola, utilizando-se do método diferenças em diferenças combinado com o escore de propensão (propensity score matching – PSM), quanto no nível aluno, empregando-se o PSM. Os resultados apontaram que o programa teve impacto positivo no rendimento dos alunos na Prova Brasil dos anos finais (português e matemática) e nas provas do Enem de linguagens e códigos e redação de 2010, bem como em todas as provas de 2011 – inclusive na média das provas –, exceto na redação. No nível escola, o programa teve impacto positivo na prova de redação e na média das avaliações do Enem, na análise entre 2009 e 2010, e nas provas de ciências naturais e redação e na média total, na pesquisa entre 2009 e 2011. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of the One Computer Per Student Program (Prouca), from the National Education Development Fund (FNDE), performance in the Brazil Test (Prova Brasil) and the National High School Examination (ENEM), both at school level, using the differences-in-differences method combined with the propensity score matching (PSM), and at the student level, using the PSM. The results showed that the program had a positive impact on students’ performance in the final years of the Brazil Test (Portuguese and mathematics) and in the Enem language and codes and writing tests in 2010, as well as in all tests in 2011 - including the average of the exams - except in writing. At the school level, the program had a positive impact on the writing test and the average of the Enem assessments, the analysis between 2009 and 2010, and the natural science and writing tests as well as in the total average, in the research between 2009 and 2011.
    Date: 2018–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipe:ipetds:2363&r=edu
  7. By: Inés Berniell (CEDLAS-FCE-UNLP.); Ricardo Estrada (CAF-Development Bank of Latin America.)
    Abstract: In this paper, we study how parents react to a widely-used school policy that puts some children at a learning disadvantage. Specifically, we first document that, in line with findings in other countries, younger children in Spain perform significantly worse at school than their older peers and – key to causal interpretation – that for children born in winter this effect is not due to birth seasonality. Furthermore, the age of school entry effect is significantly greater among children from disadvantaged families. To understand why, we analyze detailed data on parental investment and find that college-educated parents increase their time investment and choose schools with better inputs when their children are the youngest at school entry, while non-college-educated parents do not.
    JEL: I20 D10
    Date: 2017–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dls:wpaper:0219&r=edu
  8. By: Ofer Malamud; Andreea Mitrut; Cristian Pop-Eleches
    Abstract: This paper examines a schooling expansion in Romania which increased educational attainment for successive cohorts born between 1945 and 1950. We use a regression discontinuity design at the day level based on school entry cutoff dates to estimate impacts on mortality with 1994-2016 Vital Statistics data and self-reported health with 2011 Census data. We find that the schooling reform led to significant increases in years of schooling and changes in labor market outcomes but did not affect mortality or self-reported health. These estimates provide new evidence for the causal relationship between education and mortality outside of high-income countries and at lower margins of educational attainment.
    JEL: I1 I12 I15 I25
    Date: 2018–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24341&r=edu
  9. By: Bhalotra, S.;; Karlsson, M.;; Nilsson, T.;; Schwarz, N.;
    Abstract: We estimate impacts of exposure to an infant health intervention trialled in Sweden in the early 1930s using purposively digitised birth registers linked to school catalogues, census files and tax records to generate longitudinal data that track individuals through four stages of the life-course, from birth to age 71. This allows us to measure impacts on childhood health and cognitive skills at ages 7 and 10, educational choice during young adulthood, employment, earnings and occupation at age 36-40, and pension income at age 71. Leveraging quasi-random variation in eligibility by birth date and birth parish, we estimate that exposure was associated with substantial increases in earnings and (public sector) employment among women, alongside no improvements for men. This appears to be related to the intervention having made it more likely that primary school test scores for girls were in the top quintile of the distribution and, related, that they attended secondary school. The greater investments of women in education are consistent with their comparative advantage in cognitive tasks, but opportunities are also likely to have played a role. Our sample cohorts were exposed to a massive expansion of the Swedish welfare state, which created unprecedented employment opportunities for women.
    Keywords: Infant health; early life interventions; cognitive skills; education; earnings; occupational choice; programme evaluation; Sweden;
    JEL: I15 I18 H41
    Date: 2018–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yor:hectdg:18/06&r=edu
  10. By: Christopher Herrington (Virginia Commonwealth University); Adam Blandin (Virginia Commonwealth University)
    Abstract: Between 1968 and 2013, two striking changes occurred in the characteristics of US parents. First, the share of households headed by a single parent grew from 19% to 40%. Second, the share of households in which at least one parent has a four-year college degree grew from 17% to 45%, with most of the increase coming from dual parent households. We first conduct simple accounting exercises to show that each of these trends has substantially impacted the aggregate college graduation rate. We then construct a general equilibrium model of intergenerational human capital investment in which households differ by number and education of parents. Consistent with historical data, equilibrium college graduation rates for children from high-education dual-parent households are high and elastic with respect to the college wage premium, while graduation rates for children from low-education, single-parent households are low and inelastic with respect to the college premium. Our analysis suggests that further increases in the college wage premium would increase college attainment for children from one large class of households (high-education, dual-parent), but not increase rates for children from another large class (low-education, single-parent).
    Date: 2017
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed017:1455&r=edu
  11. By: David Jaume (Department of Economics, Cornell University.)
    Abstract: Most countries are rapidly increasing the educational attainment of their workforce. This paper develops a novel framework to study, theoretically and empirically, the effects of an educational expansion on the occupational structure of employment and distinct aspects of the wage distribution—wage levels, wage gaps, and poverty and inequality indicators—with an application to Brazil. I proceed in three steps. First, I provide some stylized facts of the Brazilian economy between 1995 and 2014: A large educational expansion took place; the occupational structure of employment remained surprisingly fixed; workers of all educational groups—primary or less, secondary, and university—were increasingly employed in occupations of lower ranking as measured by average wages over the period; and wages of primary educated workers increased while wages of more educated workers declined, bringing forth reductions in poverty and inequality. Second, I build a model that traces these heterogeneous patterns of occupations and wages to the educational expansion. The model assigns workers with three levels of education to a continuum of occupations that vary in complexity and are combined to produce a final good. I investigate three different policy experiments: An increase in university level, an increase in secondary level, and a simultaneous increase in both. The predicted effects depend on the policy analyzed. Considering the educational expansion that took place in Brazil (simultaneous increases in university and secondary levels), the model predicts qualitatively all the observed labor market changes in the occupational structure of employment and the wage distribution. Finally, I calibrate the model with the data from 1995 and show that, through its lens, the observed educational expansion in Brazil explains 66 percent of the occupational downgrading and around 80 percent of the changes in wage levels, inequality, and poverty during the period of 1995-2014.
    JEL: I25 J24 O15
    Date: 2018–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dls:wpaper:0220&r=edu
  12. By: Adriana Moura Guimarães (FACE-UFG); Sandro Eduardo Monsueto (FACE-UFG)
    Abstract: This paper objectives to conduct an analysis of the academic evasion phenomenon among undergraduate students of FACE-UFG, an Academic Unit of the Universidade Federal de Goiás. Different from other analysis on the phenomenon, this article, attempting an academic dropout before it occurs, identifying the profile of students most likely to abandon the course. For this, questionnaires were applied to students enrolled in the courses of Administration, Accounting and Economics. The estimation of a probability model shows that, in addition to being very different from each other, the students of the three courses are affected in different ways by these profiles when it comes to solving. The models most related to the form of choice, with the pressure or influence of parents, academic performance, as well as insecurity with the future labor market, are more relevant to explain the student's desire to leave the course then social and demographic characteristics. Based on these results, a series of broad lines of action are proposed to try to reduce the problems of academic avoidance and mitigate its impacts on students
    Keywords: Academic Evasion, Higher Education, UFG
    JEL: I21 I23
    Date: 2017–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ufb:wpaper:061&r=edu
  13. By: Claude Diebolt (BETA, University of Strasbourg Strasbourg, France); Charlotte Le Chapelain (Centre Lyonnais des Historiens du Droit et de la Pensée Politique, Bureau d’Economie Théorique et Appliquée, Université de Lyon 3); Audrey Rose Menard (Laboratoire d’Economie et de Management Nord-Atlantique)
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:afc:wpaper:02-18&r=edu
  14. By: Cid, Alejandro; Arrieta, Gonzalo; Ponce De León, María Mercedes; Stokes, Charles E.
    Abstract: Optimism seems to foster the ability to manage adverse situations better - a finding especially relevant for disadvantaged populations. Employing a unique sample from a small underprivileged village, we study the association between spiritual practices and dispositional optimism. The village belongs to a developing country that is, by far, the most secular country in Latin America: this makes particularly interesting exploring the role of spiritual practices in this context. We find that spiritual practices are positively associated with higher optimism, measured by the Life Orientation Test-Revised (LOT-R): those who practice spirituality, score, on average, 14.4 percentage points higher on the LOT-R than those who do not. And this association seems to be especially robust in the case of the poor and less educated: those with spiritual practices score 20 percentage points higher on the LOT-R. Thus, the role that spiritual practices may play in dispositional optimism in disadvantaged populations deserves more attention
    Keywords: Dispositional optimism, spiritual practices, LOT-R, hope, religion, happiness
    JEL: Z12
    Date: 2017
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:84642&r=edu
  15. By: Kaila, Martti
    Abstract: In Finland, children start school during the calendar year they turn seven years old. This creates a discontinuous jump in school starting age. I utilize a regression discontinuity design and rich register data to study whether this discontinuous jump in the school starting age affects educational outcomes. I find that the school starting age law generates a significant jump in the school starting age at the turn of the year, which in turn affects educational outcomes. According to my results, those who are born just after new year have on average a 0.15 grade points higher GPA and are significantly more likely to be admitted to and graduate from general upper secondary school. In addition, I study heterogeneity in the results and find that the effect is significantly stronger for females than males. The findings may be taken as a causal effect of relative school starting age. To support this, I show that the density of assignment variable and various background variables evolve continuously in the vicinity of New Year. Theoretical literature offers three potential mechanisms that could explain the effects of school starting age. Firstly, the deviation may arise from the optimal school starting age. Secondly, the gaps may be caused by peer effects and lastly, relatively older children may perform better since they take the exams at an older age. I cannot distinguish between the different channels, and hence my results should be taken as a combined effect of all mechanisms.
    Keywords: economics of education, education and training, relative age effect, Labour markets and education, I21, I28, J13,
    Date: 2017
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fer:wpaper:84&r=edu
  16. By: Alberto Alesina (Harvard University [Cambridge], IGIER); Johann Harnoss (UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne); Hillel Rapoport (PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics)
    Abstract: We analyze the effect of immigration on attitudes to redistribution in Europe. Using data for 28 European countries from the European Social Survey, we .nd that native workers lower their support for redistribution if the share of immigration in their country is high. This effect is larger for individuals who hold negative views regarding immigration but is smaller when immigrants are culturally closer to natives and come from richer origin countries. The effect also varies with native workers’ and immigrants’ education. In particular, more educated natives (in terms of formal education but also job-specic human capital and ocupation task skill intensity) support more redistribution if immigrants are also relatively educated. To address endogeneity concerns, we restrict identification to within country and within country-occupation variation and also instrument immigration using a gravity model. Overall, our results show that the negative .First-order effect of immigration on attitudes to redistribution is relatively small and counterbalanced among skilled natives by positive second-order effects for the quality and diversity of immigration.
    Date: 2018–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-01707760&r=edu
  17. By: Ali Muktiyanto (Universitas Terbuka, Jalan Cabe Raya-Pamulang, 15418, Tangerang Selatan, Indonesia)
    Abstract: Objective – The context strategy as process and strategy as content have significant impact to the correlation between strategy and management accounting (Muktiyanto, 2016; Parnell, 2010). In the context strategy as process, this paper aims to investigate the role of management accounting to performance through the choice of strategy. Methodology/Technique – The method by structural equation modeling on 70 (seventy) of undergraduate Accounting Study Program (composition: 70% Private Universities and 30% Public Universities). Opposite with Henry (2006) and Widener (2007) and support with Speklé and Verbeeten (2014) and Acquaah (2013). Findings – This paper shown that the accounting management directly influence the performance, but not mediated by strategy. The practice of budgetary slack, the implementation of modern accounting such as activity-based costing and target costing, the use of performance measurement techniques such as the balanced scorecard, measurements based performance, and the economic value added, as well as integrated information system is an important factor in improving the performance of Higher Education. Unfortunately, the choice of strategy moderate or "stuck in the middle" has not been able to improve the performance of Higher Education directly nor as a mediating between management accounting and performance. However, in the context strategy as process, management accounting have positive influence to the strategic choice. Novelty – The effort of Higher Education to improve the performance is choose a single strategy or focus on the prospector's strategy.
    Keywords: Management Accounting, Strategy, Performance, Indonesia.
    JEL: M40 M41
    Date: 2017–12–23
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gtr:gatrjs:afr146&r=edu
  18. By: Jonna P. Estudillo; Keijiro Otsuka; Saygnasak Seng-Arloun
    Abstract: Using a rare individual-level data set, this paper explores the role of education and farmland on the choice of job of three generations of household members in rural Laos. While the first (G1) and the second (G2) generations are mainly engaged in farming, the youngest generation (G3) is engaged in nonfarm wage and overseas work. Education matters in nonfarm wage work, but not necessarily in overseas work. The female members of G3 are more likely to migrate. Our findings imply a shortage of jobs in rural Laos, pushing the less educated and the females to cross the border to Thailand.
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tcr:wpaper:e94&r=edu
  19. By: Thomas Ferreira (Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University)
    Abstract: Malawi is a low-income country where the majority of the poor live and work in smallholder agriculture. In settings like these, schooling is believed to be a valuable tool in lifting people out of poverty. Yet, little is known about how schooling affects agricultural productivity. The effect of education on smallholder agricultural production has been estimated before but this paper contributes to the literature by estimating, for the first time, the causal effects of education on agricultural productivity using an instrumental variable approach (IV). The introduction of free primary education (FPE) and the age of paternal orphanhood are used as IV's for education. The instruments are shown to calculate local average treatment effects for individuals who only entered school due to FPE and only left school due to paternal orphanhood. It is found that there are large differences in returns to education between the subgroups. Returns are low and insignificant when FPE is used as an IV but they are larger and there is a significant effect when age of paternal orphanhood is used. Thus, while education can have large effects on agricultural productivity, this is not so for individuals specifically targeted by large scale expansions in educational access.
    Keywords: Returns to education; agricultural productivity; Instrumental variables; Malawi
    JEL: J24 J43
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sza:wpaper:wpapers298&r=edu
  20. By: Janssens, Charlotte; Van den Broeck, Goedele; Maertens, Miet; Lambrecht, Isabel
    Abstract: In this paper we empirically analyse the impact of mothers’ non-farm entrepreneurship on child secondary school enrollment in rural Ghana. We use nationally representative quantitative data from the sixth round of the Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS) and qualitative data from focus group discussions throughout rural Ghana. We apply instrumental variable estimation techniques with instruments that pass weak and overidentification tests. We test interaction effects between mothers’ non-farm entrepreneurship and other important determinants of child schooling. We use qualitative data to support our quantitative findings.
    Keywords: nonfarm income, employment, gender, education, rural development, secondary education, children, mothers, developing countries, rural population, econometrics,
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1705&r=edu
  21. By: Biyase, Mduduzi
    Abstract: This paper uses archival data from colonial South Africa over the 1859–1910 period to investigate the impact of education on economic growth. The analysis applies fixed effect to account for unobserved colony-level heterogeneity and minimise the omitted variable bias. It also employs fixed effects two-stage least squares (FE-2SLS) estimator to account for a possible endogeneity bias due to reverse causation between economic growth and education or other forms of endogeneity problem. The results suggest that levels of education (proxied by spending on education) have a robust positive impact on economic growth. Results are robust to addressing the potential reverse causality of education influencing economic growth and using alternative measures of education (proxied by enrolment rate).
    Keywords: FE-2SLS; colonies; education; South Africa, growth and fixed effect
    JEL: N0 N9
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:84910&r=edu

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