IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/ecdecc/v57y2008i1p1-30.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Freed from Illiteracy? A Closer Look at Venezuela's Misión Robinson Literacy Campaign

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Ortega
  • Francisco Rodríguez

Abstract

We evaluate the success of the Venezuelan government's latest nationwide literacy program, Misión Robinson, using official Venezuelan government survey data. Controlling for existing trends in literacy rates by age groups over the period 1975-2005, we find at most a small positive effect of Misión Robinson on literacy rates, and in many specifications the program's impact is statistically indistinguishable from zero. This main result is robust to time series analysis by birth cohort and to state-level difference-in-differences estimation. The results appear to be inconsistent with recent official claims of the complete eradication of illiteracy in Venezuela, but they resonate with existing research on other adult literacy programs, which have usually been expensive failures. (c) 2008 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Ortega & Francisco Rodríguez, 2008. "Freed from Illiteracy? A Closer Look at Venezuela's Misión Robinson Literacy Campaign," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(1), pages 1-30, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:ecdecc:v:57:y:2008:i:1:p:1-30
    DOI: 10.1086/590461
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/590461
    File Function: link to full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/590461?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Baltagi, Badi H. & Wu, Ping X., 1999. "Unequally Spaced Panel Data Regressions With Ar(1) Disturbances," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(6), pages 814-823, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Deshpande, Ashwini & Desrochers, Alain & Ksoll, Christopher & Shonchoy, Abu S., 2017. "The Impact of a Computer-based Adult Literacy Program on Literacy and Numeracy: Evidence from India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 451-473.
    2. Niels-Hugo Blunch & Claus C. Pörtner, 2011. "Literacy, Skills, and Welfare: Effects of Participation in Adult Literacy Programs," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(1), pages 17-66.
    3. Allcott, Hunt & Ortega, Daniel E., 2009. "The performance of decentralized school systems : evidence from Fe y Alegría in Venezuela," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4879, The World Bank.
    4. Blunch, Niels-Hugo, 2013. "Staying Alive: Adult Literacy Programs and Child Mortality in Rural Ghana," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 114-126.
    5. Niels-Hugo Blunch & Jeffrey S. Hammer, 2018. "The Last of the Lost Generations? Formal and Non-Formal Education in Ghana during Times of Economic Decline and Recovery," Journal of African Development, African Finance and Economic Association (AFEA), vol. 20(2), pages 35-60.
    6. Christopher Ksoll, Janny Aker, Danielle Miller, Karla C. Perez-Mendoza, and Susan L. Smalley, 2014. "Learning without Teachers? A Randomized Experiment of a Mobile Phone-Based Adult Education Program in Los Angeles - Working Paper 368," Working Papers 368, Center for Global Development.
    7. Barakat, Bilal, 2016. "Improving Adult Literacy Without Improving The Literacy of Adults? A Cross-National Cohort Analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 242-257.
    8. Martínez, Luis R., 2017. "Transnational insurgents: Evidence from Colombia's FARC at the border with Chávez's Venezuela," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 138-153.
    9. Arusha Cooray (University of Wollongong), "undated". "Does Colonialism Exert a Long Term Economic Impact on Adult Literacy?," QEH Working Papers qehwps176, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Martin, Philippe & Mayer, Thierry & Mayneris, Florian, 2011. "Public support to clusters: A firm level study of French "Local Productive Systems"," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 108-123, March.
    2. Trottmann, Maria & Zweifel, Peter & Beck, Konstantin, 2012. "Supply-side and demand-side cost sharing in deregulated social health insurance: Which is more effective?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 231-242.
    3. Czarnitzki, Dirk & Doherr, Thorsten & Hussinger, Katrin & Schliessler, Paula & Toole, Andrew A., 2016. "Knowledge Creates Markets: The influence of entrepreneurial support and patent rights on academic entrepreneurship," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 131-146.
    4. Binet Marie-estelle & Francois Facchini, 2013. "Okun's law in the french regions: a cross-regional comparison," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(1), pages 420-433.
    5. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/c8dmi8nm4pdjkuc9g8mc0ghsn is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Błażej Łyszczarz, 2018. "Determinanty wydatków na zdrowie w gospodarstwach domowych w Polsce," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 1, pages 137-157.
    7. Hikmet Akyol & Selim Basar, 2024. "Empirical Analysis of Turkish Banking Sector Institutional and Macroeconomic Determinants of Risks," Istanbul Journal of Economics-Istanbul Iktisat Dergisi, Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 73(74-1), pages 59-98, June.
    8. Schober, Dominik, 2013. "Static vs. dynamic impacts of unbundling: Electricity markets in South America," ZEW Discussion Papers 13-033, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    9. Bryan Kelly & Alexander Ljungqvist, 2012. "Testing Asymmetric-Information Asset Pricing Models," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(5), pages 1366-1413.
    10. Tsekeris, Theodore, 2016. "Interregional trade network analysis for road freight transport in Greece," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 132-148.
    11. Dick, Christian D. & MacDonald, Ronald & Menkhoff, Lukas, 2015. "Exchange rate forecasts and expected fundamentals," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 235-256.
    12. Bedoya-Maya, Felipe & Calatayud, Agustina & González Mejia, Vileydy, 2022. "Estimating the effect of urban road congestion on air quality in Latin America," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 12468, Inter-American Development Bank.
    13. Gudrun Østby, 2016. "Rural–urban migration, inequality and urban social disorder: Evidence from African and Asian cities," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 33(5), pages 491-515, November.
    14. Jianping Mei & Jose A. Scheinkman & Wei Xiong, 2009. "Speculative Trading and Stock Prices: Evidence from Chinese A-B Share Premia," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 10(2), pages 225-255, November.
    15. Amiri, Hossein & Samadian, Farzaneh & Yahoo, Masoud & Jamali, Seyed Jafar, 2019. "Natural resource abundance, institutional quality and manufacturing development: Evidence from resource-rich countries," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 550-560.
    16. François, Abel & Magni-Berton, Raul & Weill, Laurent, 2014. "Abortion and crime: Cross-country evidence from Europe," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 24-35.
    17. Peter Egger, 2008. "On the role of distance for outward FDI," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 42(2), pages 375-389, June.
    18. Edquist, Harald, 2022. "The economic impact of mobile broadband speed," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(5).
    19. Fernandes, Ana M., 2007. "Trade policy, trade volumes and plant-level productivity in Colombian manufacturing industries," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 52-71, March.
    20. Evans, Lawrance & Schwartz, Jeremy, 2014. "The effect of concentration and regulation on audit fees: An application of panel data techniques," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 130-144.
    21. Jae Sim & Simon Gilchrist, 2007. "Investment during the Korean financial crisis: A structural econometric approach," 2007 Meeting Papers 53, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:ecdecc:v:57:y:2008:i:1:p:1-30. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/EDCC .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.