While use of contract teachers provides a low-cost way to increase teacher numbers, it raises the quality concern that these less trained teachers may be less effective.  We estimate the causal contract-teacher effect on student achievement using school fixed effects and value-added models of...

This study investigates the relationship between parental schooling on the one hand, and child health outcomes (height and weight) and parental health-seeking behaviour (immunisation status of children), on the other.  While establishing a correlational link between parental schooling and child...

Using new and unique panel data, we investigate the role of long-term health and childhood malnutrition in schooling outcomes for children in rural India, many of whom lack basic numeracy and literacy skills.  Using data on students' performance on mathematics and Hindi tests, we examine the...

This study investigates public-private sector wage differentials for male and female waged employees in Pakistan. This is done using latest nationally representative data from the Pakistan Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) 2005. We adopt three methodologies to obtain robust estimates of...

The conventional approach of economists to the measurement of poverty in poor countries is to use measures of income or consumption. This has been challenged by those who favour broader criteria for poverty and its avoidance. These include the fulfilment of ‘basic needs’, the...

Using a South African data set, the paper poses six questions about the determinants of subjective well-being. Much of the paper is concerned with the role of relative concepts. We find that comparator income – measured as average income of others in the local residential cluster – enters...

Improving weak teaching may be one of the most effective means of raising pupil achievement. However, teachers. classroom practices and the teaching .process. may matter more to student learning than teachers. observed résumé characteristics (such as certification and experience). There may...