Education For All: A Welfare-Improving Course for Africa?

Elizabeth Caucutt () and Krishna Kumar ()

Review of Economic Dynamics, 2007, vol. 10, issue 2, pages 294-326

Abstract: In this paper, we argue that the case for universal compulsory education for sub-Saharan Africa might have been overstated. We capture the African situation through a heterogeneous-agent model, in which high costs of education relative to income and the skill premium cause the economy to stagnate in a low steady state with minimal educational attainment. We calibrate the model to available data from the sub-Saharan African countries to study education policies. We find that a tax and in-kind subsidy scheme that effectively redistributes resources from households with lower ability children to those with higher ability children outperforms enrollment-maximizing policies such as the abolition of child labor and compulsory education. (Copyright: Elsevier)

Keywords: Heterogeneous-agent macroeconomic models; Education subsidies; Economic stagnation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O11 E60 I22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007

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