Distance Education: Methods of Education for Students in Remote Areas of China

This paper illustrates that distance education is a useful mechanism of education for students living in remote areas or those who desire a native English-speaking teacher to improve their own language skills. However, it will also show the ways in which distance education is not the perfect solution. This paper will overall find that distance education improves future economic opportunities, causes changes in teacher/student power dynamics, and does, to some extent, increase access to schooling for children living in rural, remote areas

Technology, organisation and productivity performance in services : lessons from Britain and the United States since 1870

This paper documents the comparative productivity performance of the United States and Britain since 1870, showing the importance of developments in services. We identify the transition in market services from customised, low-volume, high-margin business organised on a network basis to standardised, high-volume, low-margin business with hierarchical management, as a key factor. A model of the interaction between technology, organisation and economic performance is then provided, focusing on the transition from networks to hierarchies. Four general lessons are drawn: (1) developments in services must be analysed if the major changes in comparative productivity performance among nations are to be understood fully; (2) different technologies and organisational forms can co-exist efficiently; (3) technological change can cause difficulties of adjustment in technology-using sectors if it is not suited to the social capabilities of the society; (4) reversal of technological trends can lead to reversal of comparative productivity performance

Promising Approaches to Address the Needs of Poor Female Farmers: Resources, Constraints, and Interventions

This paper critically reviews attempts to increase poor female farmers' access to, and control of, productive resources in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. It surveys the literature from 1998 to 2008 that describes interventions and policy changes across several key agricultural resources, including land, soil, and water; labor-saving technologies; improved varieties; extension services; and credit. Main questions: (1) Are women more constrained in access to, and control of, productive resources? (2) What are the key intervention strategies to address constraints to accessing such resources? (3) What are some of the promising approaches that have been used in the field? and (4) Have those approaches been rigorously evaluated, and what are the implications for scaling up

The Role of Agriculture and Human Capital in Economic Growth: Farmers, Schooling, and Health

This survey reviews the existing literature, identifying the contribution of agriculture, schooling, and nutrition to economic growth and development over time and across countries. Particular attention is paid to the roles of improvements in agricultural technology and of the human capital of farmers and farm people. Macroeconomic and microeconomic evidence related to the interactions between human capital, productivity and real income per capita have occurred over the past 250 years. We show that for most countries, development is a process of conversion from primarily agrarian economies to urban industrial and service economies. The evidence is that positive technology shocks to agriculture have played a key role in igniting a transition from traditional to modern agriculture and to long-term economic growth in almost all countries. Improvements in agricultural technologies improve labor productivity and create surplus agricultural labor that can provide workers for the growing urban areas. In some cases, improved nutrition helps raise labor productivity and allows individuals to work for longer hours, which makes human capital investments more attractive. The induced improvements in the skill level of a population have major implications for raising living standards, improving health standards, and altering time allocation decisions. In most currently poor and middle income countries, improved schooling has been more important than improved nutrition or caloric intake in explaining recent economic growth. Nevertheless, the poorest countries of the world continue to have a large share of their labor force in agriculture, and growth cannot occur until they experience their own agricultural transformation.

Human Capital and the Inclusive Economy

This paper draws on recent empirical evidence to look at how human capital policies in New Zealand can achieve "Inclusive Economy" objectives. In particular it looks at evidence on policies that are best to promote growth, and to improve the distribution of well-being; whether they are the same, and the extent to which they involve trade-offs. Compared to other OECD countries, New Zealand appears to have relatively high rates of participation in tertiary education, and at least average performance on measures of achievement amongst school students. Nevertheless, in common with other English speaking countries, it tends to have a relatively wide dispersion of skills both amongst school students and in the working age population. There is some suggestion that New Zealand is not making as much progress as other countries (Australia in particular) in raising skills among the less able, in new generations of school leavers. Taken over all, the paper suggests a two-pronged strategy. Firstly, policies should aim to increase the incidence of world-class tertiary education and research relevant to industry. Given already high levels of public and private investment in tertiary education, this should involve redesign of institutional and funding arrangements, rather than large amounts of extra public resources. Secondly, policies should aim to raise the skills of the less able entering the workforce. Interventions in early childhood and primary schooling are likely to be most effective in the long term - though, given the current large stock of low skilled adults, a continuing search for effective working-age interventions to address this will also be worthwhile.Human capital, education, economic growth, distribution of earnings

Household technology acceptance heterogeneity in computer adoption

Technology policy analysis and implementation relies on knowledge and understanding of the "adoption gap" in information technologies among different groups of consumers. Factors that explain the residential "digital divide" also need to be identified and quantified. Through the application of survey data we provide an enhanced understanding of the key factors involved in the choice of residential computer adoption. These choices are analysed using a discrete choice model that reveals that sociodemographic factors strongly influence the adoption of the residential computer. Moreover, we apply the basic findings of the Technology Adoption Model (TAM) into the discrete choice framework heteroscedastically to deepen our understanding of why some households choose not to have computers; above and beyond what may be explained by socio-demography alone. Generally, we find that computer adoption is sensitive to household digital division measures and that the model fit improves with the heteroscedastic addition of the TAM factors. These findings are important for market planners and policymakers who wish to understand and quantify the impact of these factors on the digital divide across different household types, as defined by the TAM model

Rising skill premia; you ain't seen nothing yet?

Increases in inequality between low and high-skilled workers are likely to affect welfare state policies in upcoming decades. Demand for redistribution puts pressure on marginal income-tax rates and other social security measures. We come to this conclusion by confronting expected supply and demand for skill. If demand for skill continues to increase at the pace of the last decades, supply has to keep up its high rate of growth of the last decades too. A priori, the former is plausible, the latter is not. This paper makes this point and sketches the major uncertainties surrounding the underlying trends.

How Much Do Educational Outcomes Matter in OECD Countries?

Existing growth research provides little explanation for the very large differences in long-run growth performance across OECD countries. We show that cognitive skills can account for growth differences within the OECD, whereas a range of economic institutions and quantitative measures of tertiary education cannot. Under the growth model estimates and plausible projection parameters, school improvements falling within currently observed performance levels yield very large gains. The present value of OECD aggregate gains through 2090 could be as much as $275 trillion, or 13.8 percent of the discounted value of future GDP. Extensive sensitivity analyses indicate that, while differences between model frameworks and alternative parameter choices make a difference, the economic impact of improved educational outcomes remains enormous. Interestingly, the quantitative difference between an endogenous and neoclassical model framework – with improved skills affecting the long-run growth rate versus just the steady-state income level – matters less than academic discussions suggest. We close by discussing evidence on which education policy reforms may be able to bring about the simulated improvements in educational outcomes.education, growth, OECD, cognitive skills, projection