Sharmistha Self

Does education at all levels cause growth? India, a case study

This paper seeks to examine the impact of education on income growth in India for the time period 1966–1996. Education is broken down into the categories of primary, secondary, and tertiary. Time series techniques are used to determine whether education, for each category, has a causal impact on growth. Furthermore, the education variables are also broken down by gender and analysis is carried out to determine whether the causal results vary by gender. The results indicate that primary education has a strong causal impact on growth, with more limited evidence of such an impact for secondary education. Finally, the evidence is quite compelling that it is female education at all levels, that has potential for generating economic growth.

How effective is public health expenditure in improving overall health? A cross-country analysis

The primary emphasis of this paper is on seeking some justification for the worldwide phenomenon of increasing government involvement in health–care. The disability–adjusted–health–expectancy (DALE) rankings of countries in the World Health Report, 2000, ranked wealthier countries, with a typically large public sector involvement in health–care, higher on the list. Contrary to the possible implications for this ranking, this paper finds that the comparatively higher DALE in wealthier countries is not a result of greater public health expenditures. In the middle income and less developed countries, however, there is some evidence of effective public involvement in health–care.

Estimating the efficiency of the system of healthcare financing in achieving better health

This paper contributes to the effort to model and measure how the method of financing of health expenditure affects the efficiency with which better health can be achieved. The focus is on the health system efficiency at the country level, which provides an alternative to the work done in the WHO in this regard. The approach uses frontier techniques as in the WHO studies; however the paper appeals to the economic index number theory of quantity and productivity indexes, which have well-established axiomatic properties, and provides a means for aggregating multiple health output proxies without having to attach arbitrary weights. This allows the proposal of a specification that embeds health sector performance in a broader index of economic inputs and outputs and allows for comparisons across countries and time.

Education and long-run development in Japan

Abstract This paper’s main goal is to determine the relationship between various types or levels of education and economic growth in Japan in both the pre- and postwar periods. The data utilized represents average years of schooling at the primary, secondary, tertiary, and vocational educational levels. The results indicate that primary schooling is causal with respect to growth in both the pre- and postwar period. Secondary and tertiary education have a causal impact on growth in the postwar period with the evidence strongly supporting the multiple channels via which tertiary education influenced the postwar Japanese economy. Vocational education does not seem to have had a direct effect on growth in either period. There is evidence of some causal feedback from economic growth to education at all levels as well as for vocational education in both the prewar and postwar periods.

Studying Absenteeism in Principles of Macroeconomics: Do Attendance Policies Make a Difference?

The primary objective of this article is to see if and how attendance policy influences class attendance in undergraduate-level principles of macroeconomics classes. The second objective, which is related to the first, is to examine whether the nature of the attendance policy matters in terms of its impact on class attendance behavior. The results provide strong support that having an explicit attendance policy reduces absenteeism. The results relating to the nature of the attendance policy point to the greater effectiveness of a policy that punishes students for missing class rather than one that rewards students for good attendance.

Factor Accumulation or TFP? A Reassessment of Growth in Southeast Asia

This paper reassesses economic growth in five South-East Asian countries utilizing a non-parametric productivity index and parametric techniques to trace the ultimate source/s of growth. Our results show that there is no single explanation for the growth performance of the countries in our sample. The results, particularly with reference to the role of embodied technology are comforting in terms of policy implications for countries such as Singapore, where, given the capital output ratios, there are lower returns to future capital accumulation. The possibility of capital being embodied through technological change makes future prospects much brighter for such a country. Copyright 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Market and Non-market Child Labour in Rural India: The Role of the Mother's Participation in the Labour Force

The main purpose of this paper is to study market (outside the home) and non-market (domestic) child labour in rural India and see how this is influenced by a mothers participation in the labour force. The paper also investigates whether this participation has a different impact on sons as compared with daughters. The empirical analysis is based on household survey data from rural households in northern and eastern India. The results show that a mothers labour is not a substitute for, but a complement to, market and non-market child labour, while a mothers education, along with the fathers education, reduces the likelihood of child labour. Gender-based analysis lends support to existing literature regarding the gender bias in domestic child labour. Additionally, a mothers participation in the labour force is found to increase the likelihood of daughters working outside the home as well. Thus, an increase in the opportunity for mothers to work in the labour-intensive agricultural sector makes child labour more likely. The results of this paper have important policy implications.

Female Autonomy and Health Care in Developing Countries

Decisions within the household determine the allocation of resources. Theory suggests that the more autonomous women are within the household, the greater influence they will have in that allocation. This paper utilizes several measures of a womans autonomy within the household. It is hypothesized that the greater the womans autonomy, the more likely she will be to visit a doctor, rather than other traditional sources of healing/care, when ill. This hypothesis is tested using data drawn from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in India. The results lend support to the importance of autonomy for a woman in increasing her likelihood of visiting a medical doctor when ill. Additionally, the results show that socio‐economic differences go a long way in explaining differences in healthcare choices for the sick.

Gender Development, Institutions, and Level of Economic Development

Gender inequality and the lack of gender development are major problems in developing countries. Neoclassical economics has generally argued that economic development will greatly enhance gender development. However, more recent work has emphasized the role of institutions. In this paper, a distinction is made between malleable institutions and those that change only over long periods of time. Empirical estimations of the impacts of economic development, malleable institutions, and hard-to-change institutions on gender development are carried out. The results indicate that both economic development and reform of malleable institutions are important determinants of relative gender performance. However, non-malleable institutions and cultural practices limit the impact that reform and economic development can have on relative gender performance.

Utilizing Online Tools to Measure Effort: Does it Really Improve Student Outcome?

This paper tests to see if and how incorporating an online learning tool affects student outcome in a traditionally taught Principles of Macroeconomics class. Outcome is measured by test grade. Participation in online learning is used to measure student effort. Doing online homework assignments is seen as mandatory effort while accessing a website to voluntarily practice non-grade-bearing problems is seen as voluntary effort. The results show that doing well on online homework assignments does not impact test grades. On the other hand students that voluntarily access the website to practice on additional problems are found to do better on tests. While the results imply that increased effort is linked with better outcome it does not definitely show that adding the online component made a significant difference to student outcome.