IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/adb/adbwps/376.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Working Paper 145 - Assessing the Returns to Education in the Gambia

Author

Abstract

Using three nationally representative surveys from the country, we estimate the private rates of returns to education in The Gambia. To obtain consistent estimates, we exploit exogenous variation in school availability in the country at the district level at the time current wage earners where born. Our results show that the private rates of returns to education are quite high, although heterogeneous across regions of the country. The high rates of returns are robust to alternate formulations.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeremy D. Foltz & Ousman Gajigo, 2012. "Working Paper 145 - Assessing the Returns to Education in the Gambia," Working Paper Series 376, African Development Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:adb:adbwps:376
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Publications/WPS%20No%20145%20Assessing%20the%20Returns%20to%20Education%20in%20the%20Gambia%20SS.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Suresh de Mel & David McKenzie & Christopher Woodruff, 2009. "Are Women More Credit Constrained? Experimental Evidence on Gender and Microenterprise Returns," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(3), pages 1-32, July.
    2. Michael Lokshin, 2006. "Difference-based semiparametric estimation of partial linear regression models," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 6(3), pages 377-383, September.
    3. T. Paul Schultz, 2004. "Evidence of Returns to Schooling in Africa from Household Surveys: Monitoring and Restructuring the Market for Education," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 13(02), pages 95-148, December.
    4. Jean-Paul Chavas & Ragan Petrie & Michael Roth, 2005. "Farm Household Production Efficiency: Evidence from The Gambia," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 87(1), pages 160-179.
    5. Mikael Lindahl & Alan B. Krueger, 2001. "Education for Growth: Why and for Whom?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1101-1136, December.
    6. Esther Duflo, 2001. "Schooling and Labor Market Consequences of School Construction in Indonesia: Evidence from an Unusual Policy Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 795-813, September.
    7. Rose, Elaina, 2001. "Ex ante and ex post labor supply response to risk in a low-income area," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 371-388, April.
    8. Lisa A. Cameron & Christopher Worswick, 2003. "The Labor Market as a Smoothing Device: Labor Supply Responses to Crop Loss," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(2), pages 327-341, May.
    9. Uwaifo Oyelere, Ruth, 2010. "Africa's education enigma? The Nigerian story," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 128-139, January.
    10. Psacharopoulos, George, 1994. "Returns to investment in education: A global update," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 22(9), pages 1325-1343, September.
    11. Siphambe, Happy Kufigwa, 2000. "Rates of return to education in Botswana," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 291-300, June.
    12. Mwabu, Germano & Schultz, T Paul, 1996. "Education Returns across Quantiles of the Wage Function: Alternative Explanations for Returns to Education by Race in South Africa," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 335-339, May.
    13. Barrett, C. B. & Reardon, T. & Webb, P., 2001. "Nonfarm income diversification and household livelihood strategies in rural Africa: concepts, dynamics, and policy implications," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 315-331, August.
    14. Imbens, Guido W & Angrist, Joshua D, 1994. "Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 467-475, March.
    15. Ito, Takahiro & Kurosaki, Takashi, 2006. "Weather Risk and the Off-­Farm Labor Supply of Agricultural Households in India," 2006 Annual Meeting, August 12-18, 2006, Queensland, Australia 25774, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    16. Card, David, 2001. "Estimating the Return to Schooling: Progress on Some Persistent Econometric Problems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(5), pages 1127-1160, September.
    17. Christopher F Baum & Mark E. Schaffer & Steven Stillman, 2007. "Enhanced routines for instrumental variables/generalized method of moments estimation and testing," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 7(4), pages 465-506, December.
    18. Glewwe, Paul, 1996. "The relevance of standard estimates of rates of return to schooling for education policy: A critical assessment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 267-290, December.
    19. World Bank, 2010. "World Development Indicators 2010," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 4373.
    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. Ousman Gajigo, 2016. "Closing the education gender gap: estimating the impact of girls' scholarship program in The Gambia," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(2), pages 167-188, April.
    2. Vito Peragine & Giorgia Zotti, 2024. "Assessing the extent, the evolution, and the sources of inequality of opportunity in Sierra Leone and The Gambia," SERIES 06-2024, Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza - Università degli Studi di Bari "Aldo Moro", revised Nov 2024.
    3. Ousman Gajigo, 2013. "Credit Constraints and Agricultural Risk for Non‐Farm Enterprises," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 25(4), pages 648-662, December.
    4. Muhammad Nauman Malik & Masood Sarwar Awan, 2016. "Analysing Econometric Bias and Non-linearity in Returns to Education of Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 55(4), pages 837-851.
    5. Ferdinand Ahiakpor & Raymond Swaray, 2015. "Parental expectations and school enrolment decisions: Evidence from rural Ghana," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(1), pages 132-142, February.
    6. Gordon Abekah‐Nkrumah & Patrick Opoku Asuming & Hadrat Yusif, 2022. "The impact of an additional year in high school on academic performance at university: Evidence from a policy experiment in Ghana," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 40(6), November.

    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. Jeremy D. Foltz & Ousman Gajigo, 2012. "Assessing the Returns to Education in The Gambia-super- †," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 21(4), pages 580-608, August.
    2. Uwaifo Oyelere, Ruth, 2010. "Africa's education enigma? The Nigerian story," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 128-139, January.
    3. Nikolov, Plamen & Jimi, Nusrat & Chang, Jerray, 2020. "The Importance of Cognitive Domains and the Returns to Schooling in South Africa: Evidence from Two Labor Surveys," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    4. Peet, Evan D. & Fink, Günther & Fawzi, Wafaie, 2015. "Returns to education in developing countries: Evidence from the living standards and measurement study surveys," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 69-90.
    5. Uwaifo, Ruth, 2006. "Africa's Education Enigma? The Nigerian story," 2006 Annual meeting, July 23-26, Long Beach, CA 21254, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    6. Günther Fink & Evan Peet, 2016. "Returns to Education in Low and Middle-Income Countries: Evidence from the Living Standards and Measurement Surveys," PGDA Working Papers 12014, Program on the Global Demography of Aging.
    7. Tushar Agrawal, 2011. "Returns to education in India: Some recent evidence," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2011-017, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    8. Monazza Aslam, 2006. "Rates of Return to Education by Gender in Pakistan," Economics Series Working Papers GPRG-WPS-064, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    9. Uwaifo Oyelere, Ruth, 2008. "Understanding Low Average Returns to Education in Africa: The Role of Heterogeneity across Education Levels and the Importance of Political and Economic Reforms," IZA Discussion Papers 3766, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Issofou NJIFEN & Aicha PEMBOURA, 2020. "Hétérogénéité dans les rendements de l’éducation au Cameroun : une estimation en présence des biais de sélection et d’endogénéité," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 52, pages 105-126.
    11. Serneels, Pieter & Beegle, Kathleen & Dillon, Andrew, 2017. "Do returns to education depend on how and whom you ask?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 5-19.
    12. Glewwe, Paul & Kremer, Michael, 2006. "Schools, Teachers, and Education Outcomes in Developing Countries," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & F. Welch (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 16, pages 945-1017, Elsevier.
    13. Siameh, Celestine O., 2020. "The Impact of Education Reforms on Household Adult Welfare Outcomes in Ethiopia: The 1994 Free Primary Education (FPE) Reform," 2020 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, Kansas City, Missouri 304567, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    14. Geeta Kingdon & Nicolas Theopold, 2006. "Do returns to education matter to schooling participation?," Economics Series Working Papers GPRG-WPS-052, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    15. Geeta Gandhi Kingdon & Nicolas Theopold, 2008. "Do returns to education matter to schooling participation? Evidence from India," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(4), pages 329-350.
    16. Ismail, Ramlee, 2007. "The Impact of Schooling Reform on Returns to Education in Malaysia," MPRA Paper 15021, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 29 Jan 2008.
    17. Ge, Suqin, 2013. "Estimating the returns to schooling: Implications from a dynamic discrete choice model," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 92-105.
    18. Plamen Nikolov & Nusrat Jimi, 2018. "What factors drive individual misperceptions of the returns to schooling in Tanzania? Some lessons for education policy," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(44), pages 4705-4723, September.
    19. Behrman, Jere R., 2010. "Investment in Education Inputs and Incentives," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4883-4975, Elsevier.
    20. repec:zna:indecs:v:19:y:2021:i:4:p:189-209 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Anuneeta Mitra, 2016. "Education and earning linkages of regular and casual workers in India: a quantile regression approach," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 18(1), pages 147-174, October.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:adb:adbwps:376. 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: Adeleke Oluwole Salami (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/afdbgci.html .

    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.