"Illiteracy" Revisited: What Ortega and Rodríguez Read in the Household Survey

David Rosnick and Mark Weisbrot

CEPR Reports and Issue Briefs from Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR)

Abstract: This paper challenges the conclusions of an econometric analysis by Daniel Ortega and Francisco Rodríguez on the effects on literacy of the Misión Robinson program in Venezuela. Their analysis concludes "most of our estimates of program impact represent qualitatively small and rarely statistically significant effects of Robinson, while some point estimates are actually negative." This CEPR paper shows that the econometric analysis used by Ortega and Rodríguez does not provide statistical evidence regarding the size of the Misión Robinson national literacy program in Venezuela, partly because the Household Survey data on which the authors relied are too crude a measure to make such an estimate. In addition, the statistical tests the authors used are not appropriate to test (falsify) the hypothesis that the program was a large-scale program.

Keywords: Venezuela; social programs; literacy; Latin America (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I20 I21 I28 O54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 14 pages
Date: 2008-05
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:epo:papers:2008-16

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