Demands for Education in India

Thursday, February 18, 1999
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
(Pacific)
A/PARC Hills Conference Room, Encina Hall, East Wing, Second floor
Speaker: 
  • Anjini Kochar

This talk presents initial evidence from a large cross-section of household data for rural Indian households on factors which may explain the low levels of education in this economy, particularly for girls. While much of the existing literature emphasizes low returns relative to the high opportunity costs of educating girls, the data suggest that much of the variation in enrollment rates across the economy are explained by village-wide factors, factors which are not restricted to village-level differences in the quantity and quality of schools. Anjini Kochar is Assistant Professor of Economics, Stanford University, Department of Economics. She has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and a M.A. in International Relations, also from the University of Chicago. Her research is on micro-empirical aspects of households behavior in developing economies, focusing in particular on the South Asian economies. Her most recent work has been on the effect of health on savings, and on the intra-household division of incomes.