Three essays in the economics of education in a developing country
Description
This dissertation consists of three essays which examine household decisions regarding education in a developing country. The theme underlying each of the three essays is the importance of school quality. The first essay uses a data set from Honduras to study the determinants of school attainment. The contribution of this essay lies in (a) the use of data regarding various facets of school quality to supplement household data and (b) the use of a proportional hazards regression model which deals with the problem of censoring without the use of restrictive parametric assumptions. The essay also uses recently developed tests for model specification. The key finding is that school quality does have a positive influence on school attainment in rural areas in Honduras, but the effect is weaker in urban areas. The findings suggest that policy emphasis on increasing resources per child may be misguided, and that improving teacher training, providing school lunches, and re-examining policies regarding school size may be more effective options The second essay uses another data set from Honduras to study the determinants of the age at enrollment in primary school. The essay uses a proportional hazards regression model, with a symmetric treatment of the problem of under-age as well as over-age enrollment. The estimation method tests for the proportionality hypothesis and provides a correction where it is needed. The key finding is that a number of individual, household and school quality variables influence the age at enrollment. The essay supports earlier research about the importance of family background variables in determining educational outcomes, and provides supplemental evidence regarding the impact of these variables in determining the age at enrollment. The essay concludes that the age at enrollment can be influenced by educational policy, and suggests the need for better informed policy regarding the provision of child care for young children The third essay uses a data set from Indonesia to study the willingness of households to pay for school quality. The essay is the first attempt to analyze the relationship between school quality and household educational expenditures. The contribution of this essay lies in (a) the use of data regarding expenditure on schooling for individual students matched with data about school quality from the specific schools attended by the students, (b) the use of a specification which handles the problem created because households may select schools on the basis of school quality and (c) the presentation of quantile regression results which enable an examination of the nature of the willingness to pay for school quality along the distribution of educational expenditures. The key finding is that households are very responsive to school quality in spending more for higher test scores, and that this responsiveness is greater at the lower end of the spending distribution. The findings provide evidence to support policy initiatives which transfer greater decision making authority to parents of children enrolled in primary school