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...

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...

Pakistan has very large gender gaps in educational outcomes. While this suggests that girls may receive lower educational expenditure allocations than boys within households, this has never convincingly been tested. This paper investigates whether the intra-household allocation of educational...

This paper provides an overview of how African labor markets have performed in the 1990s. It is argued that the failure of African labor markets to create good paying jobs has resulted in excess labor supply in the form of either open unemployment or a growing self-employment sector. One...

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 `capabilities` to...

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 `capabilities` to...

Unemployment in South Africa is so widespread that it demands an explanation. This paper examines two questions about South African unemployment. Firstly, why do the unemployed not enter the informal sector, as is common in other developing countries? Secondly, why do the unemployed not enter...

It is commonly claimed that the South African labor market is unusually inflexible owing to the strength of the unions and the system of centralized collective bargaining. One aspect of labor market inflexibility concerns the responsiveness of wages to local unemployment. Examining this spatial...

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 resume characteristics (such as certification and experience). There may also...