Production Externalities of Education: Evidence from Rural Ethiopia

Sharada Weir () and John Knight

Journal of African Economies, 2007, vol. 16, issue 1, 134-165

Abstract: Schooling has externality effects in agriculture when, in the course of conducting their own private economic activities, educated farmers raise the productivity of their uneducated neighbours. This paper seeks to determine the potential size and source of such benefits for rural areas of Ethiopia, where school enrolment is low and the private returns to education may not be apparent. Average and stochastic frontier production functions are estimated, including household and community education, as explanatory variables to measure the productivity and efficiency of farmers. In each case, internal and external returns to schooling are compared. We find substantial and significant externality benefits of education in increasing average production and shifting out the frontier. External benefits of schooling may be several times as high as internal benefits in this regard. However, we are unable to find evidence that technical efficiency is subject to externality effects. Our results suggest that adoption and diffusion of innovations that push out the frontier is the source of externalities to schooling. Copyright 2007, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:jafrec:v:16:y:2007:i:1:p:134-165

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of African Economies is currently edited by Francis Teal

More articles in Journal of African Economies from Centre for the Study of African Economies Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().