IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/csa/wpaper/2003-17.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Dynamics of Returns to Education in Kenyan and Tanzanian Manufacturing

Author

Listed:
  • Måns Söderbom
  • Francis Teal
  • Anthony Wambugu
  • Godius Kahyarara

Abstract

The returns to education remain a central concern for development policy. In developed countries there is evidence that the returns to education have been rising. Evidence for changes over this period for developing countries is limited. In this paper we use data from Kenya and Tanzania to estimate returns to education for manufacturing workers and examine how these returns have changed from 1980 to the late 1990s. We find strong evidence that the earnings function is convex for both countries and document significant differences in the earnings profiles across cohorts, typically with stronger convexity amongst the young. We also find evidence of increasing convexity over the 1990s in Tanzania, but remarkable stability in Kenya. We test for the importance of ability bias and find convexity robust to endogeneity. Treating education as an endogenous explanatory variable generally results in higher estimated returns to education than what is obtained by OLS. Potential reasons for this result are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Måns Söderbom & Francis Teal & Anthony Wambugu & Godius Kahyarara, 2003. "The Dynamics of Returns to Education in Kenyan and Tanzanian Manufacturing," CSAE Working Paper Series 2003-17, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
  • Handle: RePEc:csa:wpaper:2003-17
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:cff39033-f3ca-46c9-abf4-ae083e2ebfd8
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bennell, Paul, 1996. "Rates of return to education: Does the conventional pattern prevail in sub-Saharan Africa?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 183-199, January.
    2. Richard Blundell & James L. Powell, 2001. "Endogeneity in nonparametric and semiparametric regression models," CeMMAP working papers 09/01, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    3. Robinson, Peter M, 1988. "Root- N-Consistent Semiparametric Regression," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(4), pages 931-954, July.
    4. Simon Appleton & Arne Bigsten & Damiano Kulundu Manda, 1999. "Educational expansion and economic decline: returns to education in Kenya, 1978-1995," CSAE Working Paper Series 1999-06, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    5. George Psacharopoulos & Harry Anthony Patrinos, 2004. "Returns to investment in education: a further update," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 111-134.
    6. Geeta Gandhi Kingdon & Jeemol Unni, 2001. "Education and Women's Labour Market Outcomes in India," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(2), pages 173-195.
    7. Bigsten, Arne & Isaksson, Anders & Söderbom, Måns & Collier, Paul & Zeufack, Albert & Dercon, Stefan & Fafchamps, Marcel & Gunning, Jan Willem & Teal, Francis & Appleton, Simon & Gauthier, Bernard & O, 2000. "Rates of Return on Physical and Human Capital in Africa's Manufacturing Sector," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(4), pages 801-827, July.
    8. Garen, John, 1984. "The Returns to Schooling: A Selectivity Bias Approach with a Continuous Choice Variable," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(5), pages 1199-1218, September.
    9. Psacharopoulos, George, 1994. "Returns to investment in education: A global update," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 22(9), pages 1325-1343, September.
    10. Soderbom, Mans & Teal, Francis, 2004. "Size and efficiency in African manufacturing firms: evidence from firm-level panel data," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 369-394, February.
    11. Amemiya, Takeshi, 1974. "The nonlinear two-stage least-squares estimator," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 2(2), pages 105-110, July.
    12. Belzil, Christian, 2004. "On the Specification of Mincerian Wage Regressions with Heterogeneity, Non-Linearity, Non-Separability, and Heteroskedasticity," IZA Discussion Papers 1083, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. repec:fth:oxesaf:98-9 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Francis Teal & Måns Söderbom, 2004. "The Dynamics of Returns to Education in Kenyan and Tanzanian Manufacturing," Economics Series Working Papers WPS/2003-17, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    2. Marcel Fafchamps & Mans Söderbom & Najy Benhassine, 2009. "Wage Gaps and Job Sorting in African Manufacturing," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 18(5), pages 824-868, November.
    3. Kahyarara, Godius & Teal, Francis, 2008. "The Returns to Vocational Training and Academic Education: Evidence from Tanzania," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 2223-2242, November.
    4. Christian Zamo-Akono & Roger Tsafack Nanfosso, 2013. "Private Returns to Education in Urban Cameroon," Business and Economic Research, Macrothink Institute, vol. 3(2), pages 23-37, December.
    5. repec:pru:wpaper:25 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Justin van der Sluis & Mirjam van Praag & Wim Vijverberg, 2003. "Entrepreneurship Selection and Performance," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 03-046/3, Tinbergen Institute, revised 24 Sep 2004.
    7. Puja Vasudeva Dutta, 2006. "Returns to Education: New Evidence for India, 1983-1999," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(4), pages 431-451.
    8. Mukhopadhyay, Abhiroop & Sahoo, Soham, 2016. "Does access to secondary education affect primary schooling? Evidence from India," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 124-142.
    9. Pham, Thai-Hung & Reilly, Barry, 2007. "The gender pay gap in Vietnam, 1993-2002: A quantile regression approach," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 775-808, October.
    10. Chen, Jie & Kanjilal-Bhaduri, Sanghamitra & Pastore, Francesco, 2022. "Updates on Returns to Education in India: Analysis Using PLFS 2018-19 Data," IZA Discussion Papers 15002, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Issofou NJIFEN & Aicha PEMBOURA, 2020. "Hétérogénéité dans les rendements de l’éducation au Cameroun : une estimation en présence des biais de sélection et d’endogénéité," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 52, pages 105-126.
    12. Marcelo Soto, 2006. "The Causal Effect of Education on Aggregate Income," Working Papers 0605, International Economics Institute, University of Valencia.
    13. S Madheswaran, 2016. "The Changing Rates of Return to Education in India: Evidence from NSS Data," Working Papers id:11324, eSocialSciences.
    14. repec:dau:papers:123456789/7386 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Samer Al-Samarrai & Barry Reilly, 2008. "Education, Employment and Earnings of Secondary School and University Leavers in Tanzania: Evidence from a Tracer Study," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(2), pages 258-288.
    16. Francis Teal, 2010. "Higher Education and Economic Development in Africa: a Review of Channels and Interactions," Economics Series Working Papers CSAE WPS/2010-25, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    17. Kuepie, Mathias & Nordman, Christophe J. & Roubaud, François, 2009. "Education and earnings in urban West Africa," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 491-515, September.
    18. Dr Mohammad Rafiqul Islam & Dr Nicholas Sim, 2021. "Education and Food Consumption Patterns: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Indonesia," Papers 2109.08124, arXiv.org.
    19. Falco, Paolo & Kerr, Andrew & Rankin, Neil & Sandefur, Justin & Teal, Francis, 2011. "The returns to formality and informality in urban Africa," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(S1), pages S23-S31.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Returns to education; Africa; Kenya; Tanzania; manufacturing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth
    • P - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems

    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:csa:wpaper:2003-17. 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: Julia Coffey (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csaoxuk.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.