Educational expansion followed by economic decline in Kenya has been associated with a decline in the social return to secondary education, conventionally calculated, from 20% in 1978 to 6% in 1995. Wage benefits from primary school have fallen but returns remain unchanged because of...

Analysis of five nationally representative household surveys from Uganda show a fall in poverty from 1992-1997. Using an absolute poverty line calculated following Ravallion and Bidani, we find 56% of Ugandans were poor in 1992 falling to 44% in 1997/8. The conclusion that poverty fell is robust...

The concept of a poverty function is introduced, modelling the shortfall of household consumption from the poverty line as a function of reduced form determinants such as human capital and land holdings. The model is estimated using a tobit and data from Uganda. Parameters from the model are...