Essays on education and stages of growth
(2018)
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- Abstract
- This study consists of three chapters in which the first two focus on education and the impact of public education policies on crime rates, while the last chapter explores the relationship between education and birth spacing and fertility. The first chapter presents a theoretical model where crime and education are endogenous results, considering the presence of government interventions to expand access to education and incentivize schooling. In the second chapter, I developed a model of household choice where individuals decide whether working in the legal or illegal sector as well as how much of their resources to invest in the education of their children. The model is calibrated and simulated using Indian data at district level to study the dynamics behind the occupation and education choices of the household, in order to characterize the conditions, in terms of education access, education quality and crime deterrence technology, that determine a decline of crime rates. The third chapter is an empirical study of the relationship between education and fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa, between economics and demography. In this work the latest Demographic and Health Surveys are used to explore the effect of the level of education of the mothers on the inter-birth intervals for higher-order births. The reason for focusing on inter-birth intervals, while omitting first births, is that the number of days between two births, or spacing, is a key element to describe and understand the reproductive attitudes of women and households, especially in countries where the demographic transition is not yet complete, like it is the case of Sub-Saharan Africa. That is studying intervals we are able to better understand the global relationship between education and fertility. Even if the topic and the methods of the first two papers significantly differ from the third one, they all share the interest to better evaluate the role of education on economic growth. In particular, crime and violence as well as high fertility rates and population growth undermine economic investment. In this regard, the objective of this thesis is to contribute to an improved understanding of the diverse reasons and peculiar dynamics by which these factors might affect economic growth potential. The study is targeted on developing countries in which free access to education is only a recent achievement and where a greater effort is needed to improve the quality of the education system and teaching.
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Rizzo, E. (2018). Essays on education and stages of growth. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/57402