Relying heavily on equations and tabular data, this paper analyzes the educational cost functions of primary and secondary schooling levels in Latin America. Economies of scale are found for both levels in Bolivian and Paraguayan urban schools; schools combining primary and secondary school services are shown to be less cost effective. (23…

Uses time-series data to estimate empirical enrollment functions for three Puerto Rico university systems. Measures opportunity cost and benefits to education as expected wage rates and tests a market segmentation process. Results show that the universities are not substitutes for one another. To cope with continuing revenue shortfalls,…

Uses data from Japanese households to calculate the income elasticities of educational expenditure, allowing elasticities to vary nonmonotonically with household income. Explores whether income elasticities for education peak in the middle-income categories and diminish for the lower and upper ends of income distribution. Income elasticities do…

Psacharopoulos has found a declining rate-of-return to education pattern across levels of per capita income, using international data. A reexamination of Psacharopoulos's cross-country data refutes his declining rate-of-return hypothesis and points to diversity of cross-country experience as a possibly significant factor in interpreting the data.…

Proposes a production-demand framework for explaining national schooling expenditures, teacher-student ratios, and male and female school enrollment rates across countries. Data for 89 countries for 1960-1980 are used to estimate the effects of real incomes per adult, the relative price of teachers, urbanization, and other factors on enrollment…

Using data collected from 600 farm families, this paper examines the contribution of education to agricultural production and productivity in Nepal. Results show that F. Welch's approach, involving estimates of engineering production, gross revenue, and value-added functions, underestimates education's influence on productivity in traditional…

Computes intercountry and intracountry inequalities in developing countries' school enrollment rates for three educational levels, using a 1960-86 UNESCO data set. Intercountry inequality is lowest at level one and highest at level three. Intercountry and intracountry inequalities are declining. Inequalities in female enrollments are greater for…

Following a literature review, this paper examines the economic rationale for choosing nursing training through analyzing the private rate of return to nursing schools in River State, Nigeria. Findings reveal a 146 percent private rate of return ascribable to negative opportunity costs and booster effects on expected income. (21 references) (MLH)

Examines the relationship of earnings and family background, based on Greece's 1977 Special Wages and Salaries Survey. Tests whether returns to education differ significantly according to an individual's socioeconomic background. Contrary to findings for the United Kingdom and the United States, there is a positive relationship between the…

Uses data on a large sample of secondary technical and vocational schools in Shanghai, China, to fit cost functions and evaluate the importance of economies of scale. The sample also included workers and general schools. The statistical analysis, limited to recurrent expenditure, unearthed economies of scale, particularly for technical and…

Analyzes the determinants of postimmigration investments in education by adult immigrants, using survey data for Australia and OLS, logit, and multinomial logit analysis. Postimmigrration educational attainment varies negatively with age at arrival and positively with duration in destination and preimmigration schooling and occupational status.…

Using 1985 personnel record data from the Portuguese Ministry of Labor, a recent regression analysis found that the average rates of return for schooling in Portugal are in the 9.4 to 10.4 percent range. Large gender and regional earnings differentials exist. Study implications and limitations are discussed. (21 references) (MLH)

Data from a large sample of Australian twins indicate that 50 to 65 percent of variance in educational attainments can be attributed to genetic endowments. Only about 25 to 40 percent may be due to environmental factors, depending on adjustments for measurement error and assortative mating. (Contains 51 references.) (MLH)

Uses data from 1989 Uruguayan Household Survey to investigate earnings/education relationship. Mincerian earnings functions fitted to nearly 10,000 workers reveal a 9.2% private return rate for each extra year of schooling. Females realize a full percentage point over males; private sector employees enjoy a 5 percentage point advantage over public…

Empirical analyses of higher education subsidies are commonly misleading because they disregard appropriate age composition in the parental reference population. Further distortions occur depending on parents' categorization by income, occupation, or education. This paper addresses these issues using empirical data from Chile, France, and…