IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/diw/diwwpp/dp844.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Food Price Inflation and Children's Schooling

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Grimm

Abstract

I analyze the impact of food price inflation on parental decisions to send their children to school. Moreover, I use the fact that food crop farmers and cotton farmers were exposed differently to that shock to estimate the income elasticity of school enrolment. The results suggest that the shock-induced loss in purchasing power had an immediate effect on enrolment rates. Instrumental variable estimates show that the effect of household income on children's school enrolment is much larger than a simple OLS regression would suggest. Hence, policies to expand education in Sub-Saharan Africa, should not neglect the demand side.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Grimm, 2008. "Food Price Inflation and Children's Schooling," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 844, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp844
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.92167.de/dp844.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arnaud Chevalier & Colm Harmon & Vincent O’ Sullivan & Ian Walker, 2013. "The impact of parental income and education on the schooling of their children," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 2(1), pages 1-22, December.
    2. John F. Ermisch & Marco Francesconi, 2001. "Family structure and children's achievements," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 14(2), pages 249-270.
    3. Michael Grimm & Isabel Günther, 2007. "Growth and Poverty in Burkina Faso: A Reassessment of the Paradox," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 16(1), pages 70-101, January.
    4. Behrman, Jere R. & Wolfe, Barbara L., 1987. "Investments in schooling in two generations in pre-revolutionary Nicaragua : The roles of family background and school supply," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1-2), pages 395-419, October.
    5. Hanan G. Jacoby & Emmanuel Skoufias, 1997. "Risk, Financial Markets, and Human Capital in a Developing Country," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(3), pages 311-335.
    6. Kazianga, Harounan, 2012. "Income Risk and Household Schooling Decisions in Burkina Faso," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(8), pages 1647-1662.
    7. Maurin, Eric, 2002. "The impact of parental income on early schooling transitions: A re-examination using data over three generations," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(3), pages 301-332, September.
    8. Bound, John & Brown, Charles & Mathiowetz, Nancy, 2001. "Measurement error in survey data," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 59, pages 3705-3843, Elsevier.
    9. Sandra E. Black & Paul J. Devereux & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2005. "Why the Apple Doesn't Fall Far: Understanding Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 437-449, March.
    10. Denis Cogneau & Eric Maurin, 2001. "Parental Income and School Attendance in a Low-Income Country : A Semi-parametric Analysis," Working Papers 2001-08, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    11. Løken, Katrine V., 2010. "Family income and children's education: Using the Norwegian oil boom as a natural experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 118-129, January.
    12. Gunther, Isabel & Grimm, Michael, 2007. "Measuring pro-poor growth when relative prices shift," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 245-256, January.
    13. Kazianga, Harounan & Udry, Christopher, 2006. "Consumption smoothing? Livestock, insurance and drought in rural Burkina Faso," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 413-446, April.
    14. Akresh, Richard, 2004. "Adjusting Household Structure: School Enrollment Impacts of Child Fostering in Burkina Faso," Center Discussion Papers 28521, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    15. Yoram Ben-Porath, 1967. "The Production of Human Capital and the Life Cycle of Earnings," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 75, pages 352-352.
    16. Ferreira, Francisco H. G. & Schady, Norbert, 2008. "Aggregate economic shocks, child schooling and child health," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4701, The World Bank.
    17. Doyle, Orla & Harmon, Colm P. & Walker, Ian, 2005. "The Impact of Parental Income and Education on the Health of their Children," IZA Discussion Papers 1832, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Robert Jensen, 2000. "Agricultural Volatility and Investments in Children," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 399-404, May.
    19. Behrman, Jere R & Knowles, James C, 1999. "Household Income and Child Schooling in Vietnam," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 13(2), pages 211-256, May.
    20. Shea, John, 2000. "Does parents' money matter?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 155-184, August.
    21. Akresh, Richard, 2005. "Risk, Network Quality, and Family Structure: Child Fostering Decisions in Burkina Faso," Center Discussion Papers 28454, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    22. Reardon, Thomas & Matlon, Peter & Delgado, Christopher, 1988. "Coping with household-level food insecurity in drought-affected areas of Burkina Faso," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 16(9), pages 1065-1074, September.
    23. Beegle, Kathleen & Dehejia, Rajeev H. & Gatti, Roberta, 2006. "Child labor and agricultural shocks," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 80-96, October.
    24. Alison Aughinbaugh & Maury Gittleman, 2003. "Does Money Matter?: A Comparison of the Effect of Income on Child Development in the United States and Great Britain," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 38(2).
    25. Jacoby, Hanan G, 1994. "Borrowing Constraints and Progress through School: Evidence from Peru," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 76(1), pages 151-160, February.
    26. Margaret Grosh & Paul Glewwe, 2000. "Designing Household Survey Questionnaires for Developing Countries," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 25338, December.
    27. Theodore W. Schultz, 1960. "Capital Formation by Education," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 68, pages 571-571.
    28. Thomas, Duncan & Beegle, Kathleen & Frankenberg, Elizabeth & Sikoki, Bondan & Strauss, John & Teruel, Graciela, 2004. "Education in a crisis," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 53-85, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Renate Hartwig & Michael Grimm, 2009. "An Assessment of the Effects of the 2002 Food Crisis on Children’s Health in Malawi," Courant Research Centre: Poverty, Equity and Growth - Discussion Papers 19, Courant Research Centre PEG.
    2. Karan Singh, B, 2011. "Impact of adverse economic shocks on the Indian child labour market and the schooling of children of poor households," MPRA Paper 30958, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Alban Conto, Carolina & Akseer, Spogmai & Dreesen, Thomas & Kamei, Akito & Mizunoya, Suguru & Rigole, Annika, 2021. "Potential effects of COVID-19 school closures on foundational skills and Country responses for mitigating learning loss," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Grimm, Michael, 2008. "Food price inflation and schooling," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Zurich 2008 14, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    2. Grimm, Michael, 2011. "Does household income matter for children's schooling? Evidence for rural Sub-Saharan Africa," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 740-754, August.
    3. Edmonds, Eric V., 2008. "Child Labor," Handbook of Development Economics, in: T. Paul Schultz & John A. Strauss (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 57, pages 3607-3709, Elsevier.
    4. Akee, Randall K. Q. & Copeland, William & Keeler, Gordon & Angold, Adrian & Costello, Jane E., 2008. "Parents’ Incomes and Children’s Outcomes: A Quasi-Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 3520, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Løken, Katrine V., 2010. "Family income and children's education: Using the Norwegian oil boom as a natural experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 118-129, January.
    6. de Janvry, Alain & Finan, Frederico & Sadoulet, Elisabeth & Vakis, Renos, 2006. "Can conditional cash transfer programs serve as safety nets in keeping children at school and from working when exposed to shocks?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 349-373, April.
    7. Fatoke Dato, Mafaizath A., 2015. "Impact of income shock on children’s schooling and labor in a West African country," MPRA Paper 64317, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Felfe, Christina & Deuchert. Eva, 2011. "The tempest: Using a natural disaster to evaluate the link between wealth and child development," Economics Working Paper Series 1146, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    9. Kazianga, Harounan, 2012. "Income Risk and Household Schooling Decisions in Burkina Faso," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(8), pages 1647-1662.
    10. Peter J. Glick & David E. Sahn & Thomas F. Walker, 2016. "Household Shocks and Education Investments in Madagascar," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 78(6), pages 792-813, December.
    11. Rentschler, Jun E., 2013. "Why resilience matters - the poverty impacts of disasters," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6699, The World Bank.
    12. Florencia L�pez B�o, 2012. "In School or at Work? Evidence from a Crisis," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(3), pages 381-404, September.
    13. Francisco M. P. Mugizi, 2022. "Stronger together? Shocks, educational investment, and self-help groups in Tanzania," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 24(2), pages 511-548, December.
    14. Fabre, Alice & Pallage, Stéphane, 2015. "Child labor, idiosyncratic shocks, and social policy," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 394-411.
    15. Jonathan Colmer, 2013. "Climate Variability, Child Labour and Schooling: Evidence on the Intensive and Extensive Margin," GRI Working Papers 132, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    16. Cécile Bonneau & Sébastien Grobon, 2022. "Unequal access to higher education based on parental income: evidence from France," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 22005, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    17. Zhu, Guozhong & Vural, Gulfer, 2013. "Inter-generational effect of parental time and its policy implications," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 1833-1851.
    18. Cécile Bonneau & Sébastien Grobon, 2022. "Unequal access to higher education based on parental income: evidence from France ," PSE Working Papers halshs-03693195, HAL.
    19. Dragomirescu-Gaina, Catalin & Elia, Leandro & Weber, Anke, 2015. "A fast-forward look at tertiary education attainment in Europe 2020," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 804-819.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Education; Household Income; Inflation; Aggregate Shocks; Africa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • Q12 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp844. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bibliothek (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/diwbede.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.