Race, equity, and public schools in post-apartheid South Africa

"This paper uses recently available South African school census data from 1996 and 2000 to assess variations in educational quality across former population groups of public schools and dynamic changes in post-apartheid South Africa. The author argues that unless the government actively strengthens its support to former Black schools in allocating both budget and personnel, a vicious cycle of poverty and low-quality education will persist. The worry is that children who do not receive a sufficiently high quality of education are less likely to engage in regular employment and are more likely to suffer from low wages, potentially contributing to the long-term poverty trap." from Textquality of education ,race ,apartheid ,

Social learning, neighborhood effects, and investment in human capital

"This paper shows that neighborhood factors matter in schooling investments: in the face of the availability of a new technology that altered schooling returns, agents learned of the benefits of new returns to schooling from neighbors and adjusted schooling investments over time. Using household data available from the onset of the Green Revolution in India—where in some regions the diffusion of high-yielding varieties (HYVs) affected returns to schooling — the author shows that the schooling distribution of the parents' generation in a neighborhood is important to social learning and household decisions regarding child schooling investments. The study attempts to empirically identify the process of social learning and neighborhood effects on child schooling investments in a Bayesian learning model." From TextHuman capital ,Risk ,Social learning ,School enrollment ,technological changes ,Green Revolution ,

Prenatal seasonality, child growth, and schooling investments: Evidence from rural Indonesia

This paper examines the impacts of prenatal conditions on child growth using recent data from Indonesia. There is seasonality in birth weight: this measure is significantly higher during the dry season than during the rainy season. The empirical results show that an increase in birth weight improves child growth outcomes as measured by the height and weight Z-scores, as well as schooling performance as measured by age at start of schooling and number of grades repeated. The interactions of ecological variations affect early childhood human capital formation and can have long-term impacts on children's outcomes.birth weight, child growth, Schooling,

Are experience and schooling complementary?

"This paper aims to empirically identify migrants' assimilation process by examining their wage dynamics in one urban labor market of a developing country: Bangkok, Thailand. Although prior studies on migration highlight the effects of schooling on the decision to move and the resulting selectivity of migrant populations, the role of schooling in the assimilation process has not been thoroughly examined in the context of urban labor markets." from Text

Marriage behavior response to prime-age adult mortality: Evidence from Malawi

"This paper examines the effect of AIDS-related mortality of the prime-age adult population on marriage behavior among women in Malawi. A rise in prime-age adult mortality increases risks associated with the search for a marriage partner in the marriage market. A possible behavioral change in the marriage market in response to an increase in prime-age adult mortality is for marriage to occur earlier to avoid women's exposure to HIV/AIDS risks under the condition that the risks are higher during singlehood. We test this hypothesis using micro data from Malawi, where prime-age adult mortality has drastically increased. In the analysis, we estimate prime-age adult mortality that sample women have observed during the adolescent period by utilizing retrospective information on the death of their siblings. Empirical analysis shows that excess prime-age adult mortality observed in the local marriage market (district) lowers the marriage age for females and reduces their premarital sexual activities. Since a lower age for first marriage implies less schooling completed, we expect that the average schooling achievement among women would decline. This behavioral change also implies a longer reproduction period during their marriage, which may lead to a higher fertility rate. However, the second implication should be discounted if the reduction of sexual activities also applies to the married population. Lower schooling attainment among women has further implications on human capital formation in the next generation." from Author's AbstractHIV/AIDS, Marriage, Sexual behavior,

Nonmarket networks among migrants

"This paper examines nonmarket interactions among migrants from same origins in the urban labor market of Bangkok, Thailand. We test whether the labor-market performance of previous migrants has externalities to that of new migrants who moved from the same province of origin. Our empirical results, which control origin fixed effects, time-fixed effects, and origin/year-specific correlated shocks, show that (1) the relative size of the migrant population in the market decreases employment probabilities of new migrants (negative substitution effect), (2) the employment probability of previous migrants increases those of new migrants (positive externalities), and (3) when the employment probability of previous migrants approaches to unity, the size effect becomes positive, showing informational scale economies. The results imply that the positive informational scale effect dominates the negative substitution effect when the efficiency of previous migrants is sufficiently high in the labor market." Authors' Abstractnetworks ,nonmarket interactions ,migrants ,employment ,

Social learning, selection, and HIV infection: Evidence from Malawi

"This paper examines social learning regarding HIV infection, using HIV test results and sibling death data from Malawi. In the analysis, we compare hypotheses on social learning, selection. and common factors. Empirical results show that young women are less likely to be HIV-infected if they observed prime-age deaths among their siblings, whereas HIV infection is found to be positively related to prime-age sibling deaths among older women. This supports the social-learning hypothesis. Notably, schooling reinforces the social-learning effect of sibling deaths on HIV infection in women regardless of age. The above findings are robust to age (cohort) effects and unobserved location factors." from authors' abstractSocial learning, HIV infection, AIDS (Disease) Africa, Sub-Saharan, siblings,

Impacts of an early education intervention on students' learning achievement: Evidence from the Philippines

This paper examines the impact of a large supply-side education intervention in the Philippines, the Third Elementary Education Project, on students' national achievement test scores. We find that the program significantly increased student test scores at grades 4 to 6. The estimate indicates that the six-year exposure to the program increases test scores by about 15 score points. Interestingly, the mathematics score is more responsive to this education reform than other subjects. We also find that textbooks, instructional training of teachers, and new classroom constructions particularly contributed to these outcomes. The empirical results also imply that early-stage investments improve student performance at later stages in the elementary school cycle, which suggests that social returns to such an investment are greater than what the current study demonstrates.School quality, policy intervention, elementary schools, human capital formation,

Girls take over: Long-term impacts of an early stage education intervention in the Philippines

This paper examines the long-term impacts of improved school quality at the elementary school stage on subsequent schooling investments and labor market outcomes using unique data from a recent survey that tracked students in the Philippines. Empirical results, based on a comparison of students who graduated from treatment and control schools before and after a school intervention, show significant differences in subsequent schooling investments, migration, and labor market earnings between females and males. That is, females study more (relative to males) and tend to migrate and earn more if they receive high-quality educational investments at an early stage. The above results are consistent with females' greater incentives to study, driven by their higher returns to schooling, especially after high school completion, observed in the labor market.Gender, labor markets, School quality, tracking survey,

Market and climatic risks and farmers' investment in productive assets under the Second Fadama Development Project in Nigeria:

The majority of African farmers lack the means to mitigate the impact of risks such as those associated with rainfall and commodity prices. Because most farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa are risk-averse, they may be willing to invest in productive assets that can mitigate the impacts of such risks if their capital constraints are relaxed through external financial assistance. We test this hypothesis using panel data on Nigerian farmers' investment behaviors collected during the Second National Fadama Development Program (Fadama II), which provided financial assistance to farmers in obtaining various productive assets, as well as historical data on rainfall and white gari price in various locations in Nigeria. The results support the hypothesis. Under the Fadama II, farmers facing higher rainfall risk (coefficient of variation in annual rainfall) were more likely to invest in irrigation pumps that can mitigate the impact of rainfall risk, and those facing higher risks on white gari price were more likely to invest in milling machines that enable them to process cassava into flour instead of gari.poverty trap, rainfall risk, price risk, irrigation pump, milling machine, Risk aversion,