Many societies underinvest in girls'and women's education for three main reasons: high direct, indirect, and cultural costs; too few private benefits; and parent's failure to consider the social benefits of education. Strategies that have increased female enrollment are those that: lower the...

Impact evaluations aim to measure the outcomes that can be attributed to a specific policy or intervention. Although there have been excellent reviews of the different methods that an evaluator can choose in order to estimate impact, there has not been sufficient attention given to questions...

Many educators and policymakers have argued for lenient grade promotion policy – even automatic promotion – in developing country settings where grade retention rates are high. The argument assumes that grade retention discourages persistence or continuation in school and that the...

In decentralized education systems programs that promote central mandates may have to be devolved to local governments, communities, and providers. When participation by local governments and providers is voluntary rather than compulsory, the determinants of program placement are important in...

This symposium features four studies of education reforms and their impact on enrollment and learning. Three are part of a research project funded by the World Bank's Development Research Group and its Research Support Budget to evaluate innovations in the education systems of selected...

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Few would contest that teachers are a very important determinant of whether students learn in school. Yet, in the face of compelling evidence that many students are not learning what they are expected to learn, how to improve teacher performance has been the focus of much policy debate in rich...

T.W. Schultz (1975) proposed that returns to human capital were highest in economic environments where technology, price or production shocks were common and managerial skills to adapt resource allocations to those shocks were most in need.  We hypothesize that variation in returns to human...

The desirability of and prospects for development of a high-value timber industry in Leyte, Philippines, are examined. Lessons are drawn from extensive research undertaken in tropical north Queensland, Australia, including studies of landholder attitudes; sawmilling activities, including the...

This paper provides an overview of ASEM/2003/052 Improving Financial Returns to Smallholder Tree Farmers in the Philippines funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and which commenced on 1 January 2004. ASEM/2003/052 involves a series of interrelated...