Suchergebnisse

PurposeTo formalize and test the hypotheses that economic and political inequality tend to lower the quality of public education and thereby the overall quality of education in developing countries.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses both international cross‐section data and panel data from almost 100 countries to test these hypothesized effects of the two types of inequality on educational quality. Three different indicators of school quality, all at the primary level, are used. The paper tests the robustness of the findings to different estimation methods, specifications and the use of instruments for a potentially endogenous variable.FindingsThere is clear empirical support for the hypothesized negative effects of political inequality and ethnic fragmentation on educational quality. The evidence for the hypothesized effect of income inequality, however, is very weak at best.Research limitations/implicationsThe educational quality measures are crude and the analysis is at the country level. Future work can use more direct, achievement‐based measures of quality and data at the district or county levels.Practical implicationsRedistribution of income and democratization can have beneficial effects on educational quality.Originality/valueThe paper provides a theoretical model that formalizes the hypothesis that economic and political inequality can lower the quality of public education and thereby the overall quality of education. It empirically tests this model using panel and cross‐sectional data.

This study attempts to determine the extent to which human potential may be unlocked by government or other formal sector actions that induce voluntary contributions by individuals to the activities of Indonesia's posyandus or village health posts. Posyandus have been an important feature of Indonesia's public health system and have contributed substantially to the country's success in lowering infant and child mortality rates at low cost. Our analysis of links between formal activity and voluntary contributions to posyandus is conducted at two levels: individuals and posyandus, and with two different indicators at each level. Our empirical results take advantage of data from all three waves of the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS), i.e., IFLS1, IFLS2 and IFLS3. At each level of analysis there is evidence that voluntary contributions and effective service provision can be positively affected by formal sector intervention. Both community level characteristics, such as income per capita, income inequality, ethnic and religious diversity, and household and individual characteristics have different effects on the different outcome variables at both levels of analysis. The results demonstrate that appropriately designed formal sector interventions can induce voluntary inputs and, through the public goods produced, they can unlock the human potential. – voluntarism ; Indonesia ; health service provision ; government intervention

This paper constructs a model of the transfer paradox for a small open economy with nontraded goods. It demonstrates that increased production of nontraded goods can change their domestic price so as to offset the otherwise beneficial effect of aid and, under certain conditions, to create a transfer paradox even in a small country. The model is estimated with time-series data for 44 aid-dependent countries for the period 1970–1990. The results support the model and show that the nontraded goods expansion effect is more likely to cause immiserization than Johnson's tariff-distorting export-displacement effect. (JEL F0, O1)