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Primary Schooling, Cognitive Skills and Wages in South Africa

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  • Moll, Peter G
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    Abstract

    Using a fairly rich data set from South Africa, the paper finds that, despite the sobriquet 'gutter education,' the African schooling systems help to create cognitive skills, and these skills are a determinant of wage levels. Various robust estimators are used but the influential outlier problem does not turn out to be serious. Computational skills appear to be more important than comprehension skills in influencing wages. The African primary schooling system was an extremely poor generator of computational skill, the seven-year course raising the computational test score by 13 percent, if that. A policy implication is that productivity could be raised by certain near-costless reallocations of resources in favor of mathematical learning. Copyright 1998 by The London School of Economics and Political Science

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    Bibliographic Info

    Article provided by London School of Economics and Political Science in its journal Economica.

    Volume (Year): 65 (1998)
    Issue (Month): 258 (May)
    Pages: 263-84

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    Handle: RePEc:bla:econom:v:65:y:1998:i:258:p:263-84

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    Cited by:
    1. Azam, Jean-Paul & Rospabe, Sandrine, 2007. "Trade unions vs. statistical discrimination: Theory and application to post-apartheid South Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 417-444, September.
    2. Dickerson, Andy & McIntosh, Steven & Valente, Christine, 2013. "Do the Maths: An Analysis of the Gender Gap in Mathematics in Africa," IZA Discussion Papers 7174, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
    3. Niels-Hugo Blunch & Claus C Pörtner, 2005. "Literacy, Skills and Welfare: Effects of Participation in Adult Literacy Programs," Working Papers UWEC-2005-23-FC, University of Washington, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2009.
    4. Eric A. Hanushek & Victor Lavy & Kohtaro Hitomi, 2006. "Do Students Care about School Quality? Determinants of Dropout Behavior in Developing Countries," NBER Working Papers 12737, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Yang Song, 2012. "Poverty Reduction in China: The Contribution of Popularizing Primary Education," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 20(1), pages 105-122, 01.
    6. Drusilla K. Brown & Alan V. Deardorff & Robert M Stern, 2002. "The Effects of Multinational Production on Wages and Working Conditions in Developing Countries," Working Papers 483, Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan.
    7. David E. Bloom & David Canning & Erica Seigner, 2011. "The Effect of Vaccination on Children's Physical and Cognitive Development in the Philippines," PGDA Working Papers 6911, Program on the Global Demography of Aging.
    8. Luis Fernando Gamboa & Mauricio Rodríguez-Acosta & Andrés Felipe García-Suaza, 2010. "Academic achievement in sciences: the role of preferences and educative assets," DOCUMENTOS DE TRABAJO 006701, UNIVERSIDAD DEL ROSARIO.
    9. Gunnarsson, Victoria & Orazem, Peter & Sanchez, Mario A., 2003. "Child Labor and School Achievement in Latin America," Staff General Research Papers 10684, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    10. Eric A. Hanushek & Ludger Woessmann, 2008. "The Role of Cognitive Skills in Economic Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(3), pages 607-68, September.
    11. Paul Allanson & Jonathan Atkins, 2001. "Labour Market Reform and the Evolution of the Racial Wage Hierarchy in Post-Apartheid South Africa," Working Papers 01059, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.

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