Farm productivity and efficiency in rural Bangladesh: the role of education revisited

Mohammad Niaz Asadullah () and Sanzidur Rahman ()

Applied Economics, 2009, vol. 41, issue 1, pages 17-33

Abstract: This article reassesses the debate over the role of education in farm production in Bangladesh using a large dataset on rice producing households from 141 villages. Average and stochastic production frontier functions are estimated to ascertain the effect of education on productivity and efficiency. A full set of proxies for farm education stock variables are incorporated to investigate the 'internal' as well as 'external' returns to education. The external effect is investigated in the context of rural neighbourhoods. Our analysis reveals that in addition to raising rice productivity and boosting potential output, household education significantly reduces production inefficiencies. However, we are unable to find any evidence of the externality benefit of schooling - neighbour's education does not matter in farm production. We discuss the implication of these findings for rural education programmes in Bangladesh.

Date: 2009
View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=article& ... 40C6AD35DC6213A474B5 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Farm Productivity and Efficiency in Rural Bangladesh: The Role of Education Revisited (2006)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:applec:v:41:y:2009:i:1:p:17-33

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/subscription.html

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Economics is edited by Mark Taylor

More articles in Applied Economics from Taylor and Francis Journals
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().