Variability Among Determinants of Education Attainment: the Effect of Natural Resources and Institutional Quality in Sub-Sahar Africa

• Název v anglickém jazyce: Variability Among Determinants of Education Attainment: the Effect of Natural Resources and Institutional Quality in Sub-Sahar Africa
• Klíčová slova: Education, Human Capital, Natural Resources, Institutions, Corruption, Sub-Sahara Africa
• Akademický rok vypsání: 2010/2011
• Typ práce: diplomová práce
• Jazyk práce: angličtina
• Ústav: Institut ekonomických studií (23-IES)
• Vedoucí / školitel: doc. PhDr. Michal Bauer, Ph.D.
• Řešitel: skrytý - zadáno vedoucím/školitelem
• Datum přihlášení: 08.08.2011
• Datum zadání: 08.08.2011
• Datum a čas obhajoby: 29.06.2012 00:00
• Místo konání obhajoby: IPS FSV UK, U Kříže 8, 158 00 Praha 5 - Jinonice
• Datum odevzdání elektronické podoby: 17.05.2012
• Datum proběhlé obhajoby: 29.06.2012
• Oponenti: doc. Martin Riegl, Ph.D.

Seznam odborné literatury

Al-Samarrai, S., & Peasgood, T. (1998). Educational attainments and household characteristics in Tanzania. Economics of Education Review, 17(4), 395–417.

Auty, R. M. (2001) Resource Abundance and Economic Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Print.

Bauer, Philipp and Regina T. Riphahn. (2007) “Intergenerational Transmission of Educational Attainment: Evidence from Switzerland on Natives and Second Generation Immigrants” Journal of Population Economics 20(1), 121-148.

Collier, Paul and Jan Willem Gunning (1999) “The Microeconomics of African Growth, 1950-2000” Thematic Paper for the AERC Collaborative Research Project on ‘Explaining African Economic Growth, 1950-2000’, May 18th 1999

Glick, P., & Sahn, D. E. (2000). “Schooling of girls and boys in a West African country: The effects of parental education, income, and household structure.” Economics of Education Review, 19(1), 63–87

Gylfason, Thorvaldur. (2000) "Natural Resources, Education, and Economic Development." Centre for Economic Policy Research. Discussion Paper No. 2594 October 2000

Becker, G. (1975). Human capital. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research.

Tansel, Aysit (2002) “Determinants of school attainment of boys and girls in Turkey: individual, household and community factors.” Economics of Education Review 21 (2002) 455–470

Tansel, A. (1997). Schooling attainment, parental education, and gender in Cote D’Ivoire and Ghana. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 45(4), 825–856.

Demographic and Health Surveys, USAID

World Bank, World Development Indicators, 2012

Transparency International, Corruptions Perceptions Index 2005-2010

Předběžná náplň práce v anglickém jazyce

Variability Among Determinants of Education Attainment:
The Effect of Natural Resources and Institutional Quality in Sub-Sahara Africa


Topic Characteristics:
It is a widely respected belief that education plays a critical role in development. It has also become common wisdom that in many countries abundant in natural resources such as oil, natural gas, and minerals, economic growth over the long term tends to be slower than in counties that are less resource abundant. Over time, cross-country empirical studies have shown firstly, economic growth varies directly with education. Secondly, that economic growth varies inversely with natural resource abundance and lack of institutional quality. And thirdly, measures of education are inversely correlated to natural resource abundance.

By comparing cross-sectional household survey data across 22 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, the goal of this paper is to understand and determine household behavior and characteristics that predict demand for educational attainment. Are these determinants of demand heterogeneous across countries in SSA? What role does gender and wealth play? Are exogenous political and institutional characteristics of a country, such as resource wealth/dependence or institutional quality and corruption correlated with differences in educational demand determinants? What channels do they effect and why?

Working hypotheses:

• There is objective heterogeneity among countries in the determinants of education attainment
• Heterogeneity is linked to resource dependence/corruption measures
• Possible channels that effect education attainment that are impacted by resources/institutions are
o Labor market
o Supply of education at the macroeconomic/political level
o Household demand for education

In resource rich countries, and countries with low institutional quality, I expect that Parents and households forego investment in their children’s education because of lower perceived value of returns. In this case parental characteristics (wealth, education) more determine children’s educational outcomes. In other words there is little intergeneration educational mobility.

In resource poor countries, or countries with higher institutional quality, there may be more equal opportunities and availability for children to attend school, thus the parental characteristics will have less an effect on their children’s outcomes. The increased intergenerational mobility is an outcome three possible channels: genetics, parental behavior, and environmental factors (Bauer and Riphahn, 2007). This paper will focus solely on environmental/HH factors but discuss the literature from the other two channels. A possible explanation for this increased mobility is that there should be higher demand and wages for skilled/educated labor coming from the manufacturing and tradables sector. Therefore parents are motivated to invest in children's education because of the perceived returns (Sachs and Warner, Birdsall, 2001).

Methodology:
1) Probit models across 22 Sub-Saharan African countries identifying the determinants of demand in primary school attainment for boys and girls across poorer and richer wealth cohorts - determines heterogeneity
2) Pooled dataset
3) Within pooled data, compare ‘macro’ cohorts of resource dependence and institutional quality
4) Marginal effects dydx estimation to compare intergenerational education mobility
5) If results warrant, deeper analysis of select countries with additional country-specific explanatory variables
Outline:
1) Introduction
a. Briefly summarize goal of paper and top line findings
b. Describe outline of paper

2) Background and Literature Review
a. Importance of Education in development
b. Education and Economic Growth
c. Natural Resources overview
d. Institutional quality overview
e. Reason for the paper, place in current literature

3) Hypothesis
a. Determinants for demand will be heterogeneous
i. Because of stark differences in countries, languages, religions, institutions etc
b. Heterogeneity is linked to resource dependence/institutional quality
i. Possible channels that effect education attainment that are impacted by resources/institutions are
1. Labor market
2. Supply of education at the macroeconomic/political level
3. Household demand for education

4) Theoretical Discussion
a. Micro theory of human capital development/accumulation
i. Glewwe’s model and education is an investment with direct and opportunity costs for schooling vs. the perceived future benefits and returns to education.
ii. Quantity vs. quality trade off (Becker, et al)
iii. Imperfect capital markets and the altruism of parents (Leibowitz, 1974). Opportunity cost of mother’s time in the labor market and efficient household production (Tansel, 2000).
b. Intergenerational mobility
i. Education mobility
ii. Transmission channels: environment, biological, behavioral
c. Why Africa/developing countries may be different
i. Opportunity costs are high in rural areas.
ii. Labor market
iii. Parents underestimate the returns to education
iv. Girls face compounded constraints however benefit from higher returns (Schultz)

5) Methodology
a. Countries and data
i. DHS dataset overview
ii. Descriptive statistics
iii. Dependent variable
iv. Explanatory variables and predictions
v. Model specification
vi. Methodology for exogenous political economy data
vii. Institutions and Resources classifications

6) Results and discussion
a. Finding 1: Determinants of Primary school edu are not homogenous
b. Finding 2: Determinants of secondary school edu are relatively homogenous
c. Finding 3: Intergenerational education mobility increases as institutional quality increases
d. Finding 4: Household Wealth & Institutional Quality
e. Finding 5: Mineral and Fuel dependence affects secondary education mobility
f. Endogeneity and other estimation issues

7) Conclusions
a. Further areas of research