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Do Students Care about School Quality? Determinants of Dropout Behavior in Developing Countries

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Author Info
Eric A. Hanushek
Victor Lavy
Kohtaro Hitomi

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Abstract

School quality and grade completion by students are shown to be directly linked, leading to very different perspectives on educational policy in developing countries. Unique panel data on primary school age children in Egypt permit estimation of behavioral models of school leaving. Students perceive differences in school quality, measured as expected achievement improvements in a given school, and act on it. Specifically, holding constant the student's own ability and achievement, a student is much less likely to remain in school if attending a low quality school rather than a high quality school. This individually rationale behavior suggests that common arguments about a trade-off between quality and access to schools may misstate the real issue and lead to public investment in too little quality. Further, because of this behavioral linkage, there is an achievement bias such that common estimates of rates of return to years of school will be overstated. The paper demonstrates the analytical importance of employing output-based measures of school quality.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 12737.

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Date of creation: Dec 2006
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12737

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods
I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor
O15 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Schoellman, Todd, 2008. "Measuring and Accounting for Cross-Country Differences in Education Quality," MPRA Paper 9243, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jun 2009. [Downloadable!]
  2. Francisco Gallego & Robert Woodberry, 2008. "Christian Missionaries and Education in Former Colonies: How Institutions Mattered," Documentos de Trabajo 339, Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.. [Downloadable!]
  3. O'Higgins, Niall & D'Amato, Marcello & Caroleo, Floro Ernesto & Barone, Adriana, 2008. "Gone for Good? Determinants of School Dropout in Southern Italy," IZA Discussion Papers 3292, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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