Vietnam has achieved remarkably high rates of school enrollment and has maintained good social indicators (infant and under-five mortality rates, life expectancy, fertility rate, child nutrition, and access to basic services) compared to other countries with similar low income per capita. The...

The transition from a centrally planned to a market economy is likely to have a strong impact on the labor market, on relative earnings, and on returns to education. Major economic reforms in Vietnam since 1986 (the policy known as"Doi Moi") have included a number of measures to liberalize the...

The authors examine the impact of ethnic segmentation in education on educational outcomes. Between 1991 and the late 1990s, the Albanian Kosovar population received education services in an informal system parallel to the official one. Using the 2000 Kosovo LSMS Survey data, the authors exploit...

Emerging trends in education show the private sector to be playing an increasingly important role in financing and providing educational services in many countries. Private sector development has not arisen primarily through public policy design, but has of course been affected by the design,...

Using primary data from the health and education ministries, and household survey data from the Ghana Statistical Service, the authors analyze equity, and efficiency issues in public spending on health, and education in Ghana in the 1990s. Public expenditures in the education sector, declined in...

Better health and nutrition are thought to improve children's performance in school, and therefore their productivity after school. Most literature ignores the fact that child health and schooling reflect behavioral choices, so the estimated impact of health and nutrition on a child's schooling...

The author tests the hypothesis that education improves health and increases people's life expectancy. Smoking histories-reconstructed from retrospective data in the National Health Interview Surveys in the United States-show that after 1950, when information about the dangers associated with...

Aid and conditionalities are the"carrots and sticks"of the conventional, direct approach to fostering economic development. The economic theory of agency is the most sophisticated treatment of the direct carrots-and-sticks approach to influencing human behavior. Considering the outcomes of the...

The authors analyze how education contributes to savings. There are many reasons to believe that education and savings may be linked, either positively or negatively. It is generally expected that people with higher education will earn greater income, thereby leading to higher savings, even if...

The authors use a nationally representative household survey to estimate returns to schooling in Venezuela from instrumental variables based on a supply-side intervention in the education market. These estimates apply to a subgroup of liquidity-constrained individuals, in the spirit of the Local...