Pellicer, Miquel (2018) The evolution of returns to education in the Middle East and North Africa: Evidence from comparable education policy changes in Tunisia. Economics of Education Review, 62. pp. 183-191. ISSN 0272-7757

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Abstract

Returns to education in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are thought to have decreased in recent decades leading to youth frustration and political mobilization. Existing estimates of the evolution of education returns in the region have not had a causal focus and observed patterns may be driven by changes in selection bias as educational attainment expanded from a privileged few to large masses of the population. This paper exploits three comparable education policy changes over more than two decades in Tunisia to estimate the effect of education on public sector employment for different cohorts born from the 1950s to the 1970s. I combine census and labor force surveys from 2004 to 2010 amounting to more than one million observations of relevant cohorts. I find that returns have decreased across cohorts by around 1/3 although they remain large even for the later cohorts.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Evolution; education; middle east; north africa; comparable education policy; Tunisia;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics, Finance and Accounting
Item ID:	12810
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2017.11.008
Depositing User:	Miquel Pellicer
Date Deposited:	27 Apr 2020 12:56
Journal or Publication Title:	Economics of Education Review
Publisher:	Elsevier
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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