Narrow Results

Using a natural experiment, we examine the causal effect of a team incentive scheme on teachers in a Chinese middle school that intended to help the school’s students improve in their weak subjects. The scheme was successful, the average treatment effect is positively significant in math and total scores. The most improvement observed in top students’ weak subjects. The top students weak in math, English and social science improved in those subjects by 0.12, 0.10, 0.16 standard deviations, respectively. Students at the bottom 20% of the testing distribution also improved in Chinese and math.

We pursue a cross-country comparison of relative financial readiness of older households in Japan and the Republic of Korea relative to the United States. Our comparative analysis, using macro-level and harmonized longitudinal household financial data, covers the principal financial channels of old-age support: public and private pension plans, family support, and self-management of private financial portfolios. We find that while all three countries have similar public pension systems, older Americans benefit from more developed and better-funded public and private pension systems, as well as individual management of risky financial portfolios. We find that educational and health attainments of household heads and household wealth lead to a greater tendency to hold and manage risky assets. Our decomposition analysis also shows that the gap in stock ownership in Asian countries relative to the United States can be attributed to lower levels of development in financial and pension markets. However, these gaps have been shrinking more recently.

In rural areas of developing countries, shocks and financial constraints on households are generally recognized as obstacles to children’s schooling opportunities. This paper investigates the effects of income shocks and borrowing constraints on household demand for education in rural Thailand, using the Townsend Thai panel data spanning from 2013 to 2017. Information on annual rainfall at the provincial level is used to estimate a transitory income component for Thai rural households. Estimation results indicate that income risks and borrowing constraints have a substantial negative impact on child schooling outcomes, including educational attainment and the number of years delayed in school. It also finds that transitory income results in increased household education expenditures conditional on children’s attendance at school. These findings suggest that in addition to households’ socioeconomic status, children’s human capital is at risk mainly due to income uncertainty and the absence of well-developed financial and insurance markets.

We develop an overlapping generation model to examine how the relationship between status concerns, fertility and education affect growth performances. Results are threefold. First, we show that stronger status motives heighten the desire of parents to have fewer but better educated children, which may foster economic development. Second, the government should sometimes postpone the introduction of an economic policy in order to maintain the process of economic development, although such a policy aims to implement the social optimum. Third, status can alter the dynamic path of the economy and help to explain the facts about fertility during the great transition.

The phenomenon of terrorism has riveted world's unwavering attention since 9/11. The underlying study investigates the determinants of terrorism in the South Asian region. Applying negative binomial regression, the study finds that both political structure and economic conditions are responsible for terrorism. On the economic front, relative deprivation represented by income disparity is the major cause of terrorism. On the other hand, deprivation of the people of their political rights and civil liberties, exhibited by political repression, compels them to be involved in terrorist activities. Our findings illustrates that high literacy rate is one of the foremost reason for terrorism in the region.

The rapid expansion of higher education in the late 1980s in Taiwan has resulted in a swift increase in the supply of highly-educated workers in the labor market. This research differs from past studies in that it analyzes the effect of the rapid expansion in higher education in Taiwan with emphasis on the cohort effect, specifically examining the effect of changes both in intra-cohort relative supply and the aggregate relative supply on college returns. Besides, when estimating the aggregate relative supply of college graduates, this study takes into account the substitutability between younger and older educated workers. We present evidence that the expansion policy has significantly depressed college premiums for workers of all ages, but the adverse effect is particularly concentrated among the younger cohorts. Furthermore, we found the elasticity of substitution between college and high school graduates to be 3–4 times higher than in developed countries. We also found the important role played by the demand side, likely linked to technological progress and changes in export structure toward the more technologically intensive. As a consequence, the expansion of higher education and increase in the relative demand for higher-educated workers, along with high elasticity of substitution between college and high school graduates, led to the rigid low college premiums.

We present evidence against the well-established education–health gradient by relating education to measured hypertension status in 5,873 men and 6,152 women aged 40$+$ in Indonesia. Once a basic set of covariates was controlled for, the two variables were not statistically significantly related. We argue that this lack was due to neglect of chronic diseases. It appears that the assumption of full information in theories on the education–health gradient is too strong to be applied to the developing world. Therefore, more information needs to be provided to the public regarding the seriousness of chronic diseases and preventive and curative methods.

This study is conducted to examine the effect on income inequality of government spending on education across 63 provinces in Vietnam. The generalized method of moments (GMM) regression technique is used to address potential endogeneity in the model caused by income inequality and inequality in government spending on education. Income inequality is proxied by both the Gini coefficient and the Theil index. Inequality in government spending on education in Vietnam is estimated using a novel entropic approach, which decomposes the inequality into two components: “within-province” inequality and “between-province” inequality. Data for the period from 2010 to 2016 are used. Our empirical findings are summarized as follows. First, “within-province” inequality accounts for a substantial portion of inequality in government spending on education. This means that although the Vietnamese national government has done well in terms of allocating spending on education across 63 provinces, inequality in education spending appears across districts within provinces. Second, both total inequality of government spending on education and its two components are positively associated with income inequality across provinces. As such, reducing differences in government spending on education across provinces and across districts within provinces is an effective mechanism for reducing income inequality across provinces and across districts within provinces in Vietnam.

This study focused on the trilemma association of education, income and poverty alleviation: managerial implications for inclusive economic growth in developing countries in Asia to establish the proportion of the poor in the population and further identify its determinants. This research utilized secondary data from 1990 to 2016 by using econometric estimation. The results show that education decreases poverty when evaluated through the poverty gap and poverty headcount ratio and employment and increasing rate of economic development in the form of GDP to reducing poverty. GDP the Gini coefficient show the same signs while the magnitudes of the coefficients. Consequently, improvement in an independent variable will decrease poverty while the results have various levels of contributions through static and dynamic panel data methods, that education can reduce poverty. Results indicate that the level of poverty stood at 62.2%. The level of education, poverty headcount ratio, poverty gap and secondary school enrolment were significant in determining a household’s poverty status. However, land ownership and household head’s occupation were not statistically significant in explaining the probability of a household’s poverty status. From the results, this study recommends that all stakeholders work towards reducing poverty in the study to enhance education and family planning.

Chaotic circuits have been widely used in the teaching of nonlinear dynamics disciplines, where a common practice is pedagogically based on the circuit point of view. Chua's circuit is the most popular platform for the demonstration of its components with rich dynamical patterns. However, engineering students majoring in control systems are more familiar with feedback systems rather than physical electronics with nonlinear components. This may lead to some difficulty in understanding the nonlinear properties of Chua's circuit, at least on first sight. This paper provides an alternative approach to teaching and learning chaotic oscillators by using the inherent understanding of feedback systems with simple modules at the undergraduate level. Utilizing the idea of chaotification, which means to make a nonchaotic module chaotic, the modules consist of only four blocks yet can generate more than thirty types of chaotic patterns via their various combinations. Conceptually, the blocks can be assembled as various mixed-mode chaotic circuits. Functionally, the blocks are easy-to-use in a Simulink-like fashion. Structurally, they are a LEGO-like educational kit. With low-cost implementation employing a few op-amps for each block, the newly proposed modules are simple, self-instructional and suitable for teaching and training students in school laboratories and in experimental environments.

Robert Solow's model of "exogenous" economic growth driven by the global diffusion of technology is out of fashion because it is contradicted by empirical evidence of income divergence. Today, economic growth is considered "endogenous" and institutions are seen as central to the long-term growth process. At the same time, non-income measures of quality of life do see strong patterns of global growth and convergence. This suggests that institutions may be less important to achieve progress in broader quality of life while a larger and important role concerns the factors that drive exogenous change, including the flow of technology and ideas.

This paper surveys the empirical and theoretical link between education and growth in the growth process of Asian countries. Particular attention is paid to the link between education and productivity, and to models that characterize key features of growth processes of Asian countries. Empirical studies show that these key features include: risk of falling into poverty traps, focussing more on technology adoption rather than creation, and possible technology–skill mismatch. The surveyed studies provide policy implications for each of these features. For instance, to avoid the poverty trap and for efficient adoption of technologies, accumulation of human capital — specifically general human capital — and width of human capital are crucial. To avoid the technology–skill mismatch, the speed of technology upgrading should be appropriate to take full advantage of learning-by-doing and the earning potential of the current stock of specific human capital.

Living standards in China have greatly improved over the past few decades. Both sustained economic growth and an expansion of the social security system have contributed to a sharp reduction in the number of people in poverty. However, urban–rural inequalities remain large, and some of the poorest households are being left behind. Further reforms are needed to ensure that the benefits of future growth are shared and that marginalized groups have the opportunity to actively participate in the economy. In particular, policy settings should be adjusted to increase access to good quality education and healthcare for rural and migrant workers and to improve the portability of social security benefits. Changes to the social assistance system that raise work incentives and protect low-income households in poorer locations are also a priority. New spending measures can be funded by adjustments to the tax system which will, in themselves, benefit inclusiveness.

This study traces short- to long-term adverse effects of the colossal flood 2010 on educational outcomes of children and adolescents (age 5–16 years) in the flooded districts of Pakistan. Taking advantage of the flood — a type of quasi-natural experimental research design we utilized a difference-in-differences (DID) approach with inverse probability of treatment weights (IPTWs) to estimate the impact of the flood on educational outcomes by using a household surveys’ dataset (six waves). We compare educational outcomes out-of-school or dropout from school of — children and adolescents in the flooded households with the educational outcomes of individuals of same age groups in the non-flooded households before, during and after the flood. Our findings reveal that, on an average, 39 out of 1000 children and adolescents in the flooded districts, compared with their counterparts in the non-flooded districts, were not admitted in any educational institutions and 16 of them dropped out from schools during the flood. The effect of flood on education of children and adolescents, then, disappeared after 2–4 years after the flood. The education outcomes of children and adolescents in flooded households in rural areas compared with their peers in non-flooded districts were severely affected by the flood. Mirroring the impact of flood on education sector to the current heavy flood 2022 in Pakistan or pandemic COVID-19 is similarly compelling nations around the world for closure of their schools and educational institutions. The findings of this study may have some policy implications in terms of identifying the most vulnerable children and adolescents to mitigate the adverse impact of the natural disasters such as flood or pandemic on education outcomes and particularly significant to pinpoint shocks of disasters that have large and long-run impacts on human capital accumulation.

This paper aims to reassess multidimensional poverty measurement including the ease of doing business as an additional indicator with the existing measurements for 81 countries by human development, and identify how multidimensional poverty has changed during a very short period from 2014 to 2017. Further, using the tobit regression model, this study reveals the determinants of multidimensional poverty and its major indicators for both the periods. Results reveal that low human development countries are likely to be exposed to the highest multidimensional poverty as compared to moderate, high and very high human development countries. Surprisingly, we found that reduction of multidimensional poverty between 2014 and 2017 was the highest in moderate human development countries (8.18%), followed by high (5.27%), very high (3.94%) and low (2.67%) human development countries. Further, the findings from the regression results suggest that variables such as Global Climatic Risk index, Total Natural Resource Rents, Age Dependency Ratio and Urban Population Growth have a significant and positive impact on inducing multidimensional poverty irrespective of any group of countries. Contrastingly, Labour Force Participation Rate, higher score of Food Production Index, Personal Remittances Received and Volume of Trade significantly and negatively influence multidimensional poverty across the group of countries. As per the regression results, agricultural and external sectors (Food Production Index, Agricultural Land, Personal Remittances Received and Trade Volume) play a major role in reducing multidimensional poverty. This study will be helpful for the policy purpose to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the specific group of countries (SDGs 1–4, 6 and 7). Policy measures must focus largely on investment in the human capital along with prioritising climate risk reduction, proper planned urbanisation and strengthening legal rights for the vulnerable section of the people.

Inequality in access to education is known to be a key driver of income inequality in developing countries. Viet Nam, a transitional economy, exhibits significant segmentation in the market for skilled labor based on more remunerative employment in government and state firms. We ask whether this segmentation is also reflected in human capital investments at the household level. We find that households whose heads hold state jobs keep their children in school longer, spend more on education, and are more likely to enroll their children in tertiary institutions relative to households whose heads hold nonstate jobs. The estimates are robust to a wide range of household and individual controls. Over time, disparities in educational investments based on differential access to jobs that reward skills and/or credentials help widen existing income and earnings gaps between well-connected “princelings” and the rest of the labor market. Capital market policies that create segmentation in the market for skills also crowd out investment in private sector firms, further reducing incentives for human capital deepening.

This paper analyzes the equity of opportunity in basic education and infrastructure services in seven developing countries, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Viet Nam. The analysis applies a method developed by the World Bank called the Human Opportunity Index, which measures the total contribution of individual socioeconomic and demographic circumstances to inequality of opportunity in accessing basic services. The new and major contribution of the paper, however, is the development of a methodology that quantifies the relative contribution of each circumstance variable to the inequality of opportunity. This contribution is crucial in identifying which underlying inequalities matter most—which can have important policy implications, for instance, in terms of developing better-targeted interventions. Results of the empirical analysis indicate that more needs to be done to improve the distribution of economic benefits. Opportunities to access basic education and infrastructure services in the seven countries vary widely in terms of availability and distribution. The study also finds that inequality of opportunity is driven mainly by per capita household expenditure. This suggests that household poverty plays a crucial role in determining equitable access to basic services.

Using 2007–2010 data from Thailand's National Labor Force Survey, this paper examines the rates of return to schooling. The Mincer-type rate of return to investment in schooling was estimated. The rates of return to schooling for work experience are significantly positive, but at a decreasing rate. Region of residence and variation in gross provincial product per capita are significant factors in determining the private rate of return. The rates of return to schooling by type of industry reveal higher earnings in mining, utilities, construction, manufacturing, and services than in agriculture. The private and social returns on vocational secondary education attainment are greater than on general secondary education. Finally, the private returns on university attainment for women exceed men by about 1.5 percentage points.

Recent decades have witnessed an unprecedented expansion of democracy. During the third wave of democratization, as described by Samuel Huntington, democracy spread well beyond its historical boundaries and it is now adopted in all major regions of the world. Yet, not all democracies are equally effectual in delivering good governance and progrowth policies. Why do democratic institutions induce good governance and prosperity only in some economies? This paper presents an overview of the dimensions along which successful and unsuccessful democracies differ. It argues that four socioeconomic variables are of critical importance to create and maintain a well-functioning democracy: (i) social capital, (ii) information, (iii) education, and (iv) equality. History also plays an important role as do the contingencies characterizing the collapse of authoritarian regimes and the emergence of democratic institutions.

Using data from the 2007 Timor-Leste Living Standards Survey, this paper examines the determinants of household energy choices in Timor-Leste. The majority of households are dependent on dirty fuels such as fuelwood and kerosene for energy. Only a small fraction of households use clean energy such as electricity. Econometric results show that wealthy households, urban households, and those headed by individuals with higher levels of education are less likely to use and depend on kerosene and more likely to use and depend on electricity. While female-headed households are generally more likely to use and depend on fuelwood, richer female-headed households are more likely to use and depend on electricity. Our findings highlight the importance of ensuring an adequate supply of clean energy for all at affordable prices and of investing in education to raise awareness about the adverse impacts of using dirty fuels.