Literacy traps: Society-wide education and individual skill premia

Vidya Atal; Kaushik Basu; John Gray; Travis Lee

doi:10.1111/j.1742-7363.2009.00126.x

Literacy traps: Society-wide education and individual skill premia

Vidya Atal, Kaushik Basu, John Gray, Travis Lee

Economics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Using a model of an O-ring production function, the present paper demonstrates how certain communities can get caught in a low-literacy trap in which each individual finds that it is not worthwhile investing in higher skills because others are not high-skilled. The model sheds light on educational policy. It is shown that policy for promoting human capital has to take the form of a mechanism for solving the coordination failure in people's choice of educational strategy.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	137-148
Number of pages	12
Journal	International Journal of Economic Theory
Volume	6
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1742-7363.2009.00126.x
State	Published - 2010

Keywords

Education
Literacy
O-ring
Skill formation
Traps

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10.1111/j.1742-7363.2009.00126.x

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Literacy traps: Society-wide education and individual skill premia

Abstract

Keywords

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