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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Reading, Writing, And Religion: Institutions And Human Capital Formation, Latika Chaudhary, Jared Rubin
Reading, Writing, And Religion: Institutions And Human Capital Formation, Latika Chaudhary, Jared Rubin
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
In this paper, we empirically test the role that religious and political institutions play in the accumulation of human capital. Using a new data set on literacy in colonial India, we find that Muslim literacy is negatively correlated with the proportion of Muslims in the district, although we find no similar result for Hindu literacy. We employ a theoretical model which suggests that districts which experienced a more recent collapse of Muslim political authority had more powerful and better funded religious authorities, who established religious schools which were less effective at promoting literacy on the margin than state schools. We …
Public Spending On Education And The Incentives For Student Achievement, William Blankenau, Gabriele Camera
Public Spending On Education And The Incentives For Student Achievement, William Blankenau, Gabriele Camera
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
We build a model where homogeneous workers can accumulate human capital by investing in education. Schools combine public resources and individual effort to generate productive skills. If skills are imperfectly compensated, then in equilibrium students may under-invest in effort. We examine the effect on human capital accumulation of three basic education finance policies. Increased tuition subsidies may not be beneficial because they increase enrollment but they may lower the incentives for student achievement, hence the skill level. Policies directed at enhancing the productivity of education or making degrees more informative are more successful at improving educational outcomes.