The need for graduates who would be productive citizens able to contribute significantly to the Nigerian economy led to the overhaul of the old education system 6-5-4 and the implementation of the 6-3-3-4 system, with its first set of graduates from secondary schools in 1988. The main objective...

Until very recently, the conventional wisdom was that the return to education was very high in Africa. However, some recent analysis point to low average returns to education in some African countries including Nigeria. Given these low returns to education, a relevant question is what causes low...

Differences in geopolitical regions of Nigeria are not debatable. However, there is no clear consensus on the dimension of these disparities. In this paper, claims of geopolitical region disparities in labor market outcomes are investigated using survey data from Nigeria between 1996-1999. Both...

The last decade has seen a resurgence of parastatal crop marketing institutions in sub-Saharan Africa, many of which cite improving food security and incomes as key goals. However, there is limited empirical evidence on the welfare effects of these programs. This article considers one such...

The Great Recession had significant economic effects both in the U.S. and around the world. There is evidence that homeownership rates declined during this period, though some immigrants were less severely affected compared to natives. In this paper we investigate the role of several factors in...

The influx of immigrants has shifted the ethnic composition of public schools in many states including North Carolina. Recent evidence from North Carolina suggests that increases in Limited English students' concentration have led to a slight decline in performance solely for students at the top...

In this paper we explore the relationship between ethnic fractionalization and social capital. First, we test for time differences in the impact of ethnic fractionalization on social capital using U.S. data from 1990, 1997 and 2005. Subsequently we examine the data for evidence of the conflict,...

In the last two decades, the social and economic benefits of formal education in Sub-Saharan Africa have been debated. Anecdotal evidence points to low returns to education in Africa. Unfortunately, there is limited econometric evidence to support these claims at the micro level. In this study,...

There is a perception among native born parents in the U.S. that the increasing number of immigrant students in schools creates negative peer effects on their children. In North Carolina there has been a significant increase in immigrants especially those with limited English language skills and...