Presents evidence concerning the rate of return to investment in education in 32 countries. The emerging pattern shows declining returns through time, viewed in the context of alternative theories about the education-earnings relationship. The evidence supports a human capital model and continued expansion of education in developing countries.…

Examines major determinants of economic development in South Korea and Taiwan. Investigates the role of human capital, measured by educational attainment, in driving output growth and enlarging the labor income share. Physical capital accumulation and export expansion affected output growth in both nations. Although technical progress…

Analyzes 1980 enterprise-based survey data collected in Kenya and Tanzania to examine the incidence of formal training provided by employers. Estimates wage benefits by using earnings functions for subsamples of skilled manual workers. Trained workers begin at lower wages but have steeper earnings profiles that cross over those of untrained…

This cost-benefit analysis of Peruvian vocational and technical education (VTE) partly substantiates previous research suggesting that VTE in developing countries fails to offer a return commensurate with its cost. The costs of academic and VTE streams in Peru are similar, and graduates' monetary returns and occupational profiles are almost…

Earnings functions have been widely used to estimate the returns to education and training. Many studies have relied on the Mincerian specification for the earnings function, which embodies several assumptions. A study of Brazilian workers' wages finds that the Mincerian specification yields upwardly biased estimates of the returns to education,…

Taking into account an imperfectly operating labor market, this paper measures and contrasts average and marginal returns on secondary education in two adjacent East African countries (Kenya and Tanzania) with very similar economic structures. The marginal rate of return seemed somewhat lower than the average rate of return. Includes three tables…

Examines various education-related aspects of Venezuela's labor market for 1975-1984, using a sample of 40,000 workers. Education returns have declined only two percent during a rapid educational expansion period. The increased supply of educated persons influenced the narrowing of earnings differentials and led to more equitable income…

A 1978 survey of 1,178 private-sector employees and 781 public-sector employees gathered data on education, experience, higher education degrees, foreign versus domestic degrees, and ability. The higher returns to foreign and higher education degrees in the private sector indicate that such degrees have superior productivity. (RW)

Assesses effects of the financial reform of China's basic education system, focusing on issues of structure, resource mobilization, equality, and efficiency. While decentralized funding reforms have succeeded in achieving structural change and resource mobilization, the current system is marked by glaring inequalities and significant…

Uses a typical Lorenz-curve framework to measure inequality of resource allocation in South African education. Although improvements have been achieved over the past two decades, substantial inequalities remain. The current distribution of educational resources is much more unequal than that for developed countries but not as inequitable as that…

Using Botswana labor force census data plus surveys of qualified manual workers, this article analyzes the impact of training on earnings and calculates the rates of return to both general schooling and preemployment vocational training. Returns show a similar structure for both types of instruction. All exceed 20 percent. (10 references) (MLH)

Evaluates technical secondary education in Togo and Cameroon from the market perspective, using tracer study data. To help overcome difficulties in finding employment after training, many individuals secure work in the low-paying informal sector. One solution is to stimulate and enhance the role of informal training through apprentice training…

Estimates the returns to schooling in Brazil in 1980, by fitting earnings functions to census microdata. The average private rate of return has fallen by about one-third from 1970 but still remains a respectable 12 to 13 percent. When schooling levels are disaggregated, the lowest private rates emerge for primary education, and the highest for…

Chile's 1981 decentralization reforms kept most educational finance responsibility with the Ministry of Education, but transferred service-delivery responsibility to municipalities and nonprofit private schools. This paper examines this reform's effects. Municipal finance, tied to fiscal capacity, has created inequities in school expenditures.…

Uses cost, financial sources, and student achievement data from Philippine primary schools (financed primarily from central sources) to discover if financial decentralization leads to more efficient schools. Schools that rely more heavily on local sources (contributions from local school boards, municipal government, parent-teacher associations,…