This paper hypothesizes that the cost differential between primary school and middle or secondary schooling will affect household decisions to invest in any one schooling level in Ghana. Human capital investment is usually modeled in an intertemporal optimization framework in which households or individuals maximize the present value of life-time…

This report was prepared in connection with work related to programs for support for population training in English-speaking countries of Africa. The United Nations Secretariat has so far provided technical assistance for the establishment of demographic training and research centers in 14 English-speaking countries in Africa. In compiling the…

Although it is true that education is an investment, there are risks associated with relying too strongly on the metaphor of education as investment. The main problems with the investment metaphor are as follows: (1) it pushes aside the notion of education as a consumption good that people want for its own sake; (2) the human capital approach can…

Written by some of the foremost experts on rural America, this book focuses on policy-relevant research on the problems of rural areas. In each chapter, rural policy needs are identified by examining the flow of events and rural sociology of the 1980s. Chapters are: (1) "Critical Times for Rural America: The Challenge for Rural Policy in the…

This document contains 10 essays based on papers presented at a 1991 conference on the changed role of overseas education in development. The book discusses the impact of the end of the Cold War and a rapidly changing economic environment on the rationale for international student and faculty mobility. The practice in developing nations of…

Cooperative Extension Service personnel from 13 Southern states attended a conference on rural revitalization, focusing on Extension's role in (1) economic development, (2) human capital, and (3) infrastructure; 17 of the 22 papers presented are divided among those categories. Three of the remaining papers provide respectively, an overview of the…

This report synthesizes the initial findings of a roundtable discussion related to both immigration and poverty and outlines some preliminary public policy conclusions in order to clarify immediate immigration policy proposals and potential poverty policy implications for the labor market relationship between Hispanic immigrants and disadvantaged…

The United States is faced with two serious economic problems: declining productivity growth and rising unemployment. These problems have become severe in the last decade. Both problems are caused by a number of factors, but experts fail to agree on which factors have most contributed to the problems. This paper examines the relationship between…

Human suffering in India will continue as long as population growth is not checked. A change in this trend is dependent on the citizens of the country. Population education is an important priority in India. Included in this document are four essays covering various socio-psychological aspects of population issues and designed to be of use to…

Reducing the dropout rate of Mississippi's public education system from its national high of 42 percent of all students in any potential graduating class to the national average of 10 percent of the class cohort would result in substantial economic benefits to the state far outweighing the related costs, according to this analysis of relevant…

Economic policy today is often stated in the terms of "demand managers" and "simple supply-siders" who look upon economic policy simply as a matter of stimulus or restraint. It matters little what programs are cut as long as overall spending is reduced to cool inflation. On the other hand, the real supply-side economists…

The human capital concept of neoclassical economics holds that increased education will lead to increased productivity and to higher wages. Job queue and labor market segmentation theories argue that improved education merely drives up employment criteria and that the socioeconomic background of the employee is a more significant indicator of…

Because the traditional methods of adult literacy training frequently fail to achieve their objectives and because their implementation on a vast scale would be too costly, this UNESCO quide is presented as an aid in linking literacy campaigns to national development projects and the motivations for change which these might arouse among the rural…

The study determined the: (1) relationship between dropout rates and the quality of education, teachers' qualifications, diversity of curriculum and extra-curricular activities, average town income, percentage of the high school population of American Indian or Metis descent, and school size; (2) effects of educational expenditures on business…

Decision makers, policy makers, and influential special interest groups typically view many appropriations for programs that will help the poor, the handicapped, social deviants, etc. as mere expenditures and not as investment which produce substantial results. This paper sets forth several cases which illustrate that people can be an attractive…