The hypothesis that ethnic diversity has a negative impact on public goods provision is widely accepted. Notably, most work on this issue fails to distinguish adequately between national versus subnational governance. We find that subnational empirical evidence in particular is inconclusive, and...

From the early days of national independence in 1975, the central aim of the educational policy in Mozambique has been to ensure that all school-age children have access to school and can remain there until they have completed their basic education. In the pursuit of this aim, the extension of...

Raising schooling quality in low-income countries is a pressing challenge. Substantial research has considered the impact of cutting class sizes on skills acquisition. Considerably less attention has been given to the extent to which peer effects, which refer to class composition, also may...

This paper documents the state of elementary education in India and China since the 1960s, key lessons for India from China's shift in focus from 'quantity' to 'quality', and evidencebased guidelines for effective implementation of India's New Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020). The divergent...

The level of educational attainment in Mozambique is one of the lowest in the world and primary school completion rate is also very low, not reaching 40 per cent. Using data from the Mozambican Household Budget Survey 2014/15, we study (1) the determinants of school dropout; (2) the variables...

This paper estimates returns to schooling in Thailand, applying a regression discontinuity approach to the change in the compulsory schooling law in 1978. This law helped to enhance human capital investment on the eve of rapid structural transformation. The returns to schooling based on our...

Vocational training programmes, like South Africa's learnership programme, which combine classroom learning and on-the-job training seem like the type of intervention which can create skills, get young people into jobs quicker, and reduce youth unemployment. This paper uses a longitudinal...

Prior to the introduction of mother tongue-based education in 1994, the language of instruction for most subjects in Ethiopia's primary schools was the official language (Amharic) - the mother tongue of only one third of the population. This paper uses the variation in individual's exposure to...

Using admission lotteries and registry data linking labour market outcomes, we study the effect of a vocational training programme focused on disadvantaged individuals in Brazil. The intensive programme is an 18-month classroom training coupled with a 6-month on-the-job training provided by...

We examine gender differences in ambitions and expectations of jobseekers concerning self-employment, an increasingly proposed option for youth in economies with limited wage employment. Analysing survey data on 2,036 tertiary graduates in Ghana, we find that males have a stronger preference for...