Title: Measuring the contribution of education to labour productivity in a developing economy

Authors: H.F. Campbell

Addresses: School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia

Abstract: Wage and personal characteristics data from a sample of 205 tuna cannery workers in Madang, Papua New Guinea are used to investigate the contribution of education to labour productivity. A Probit model is used to test the hypothesis that more highly educated workers are more likely to be appointed to skilled positions and the results are used to estimate the value of an additional year of schooling. Regression models are used to estimate the effects of levels of education on the earnings of skilled and unskilled workers, respectively. These models are also used to test for sex discrimination. One conclusion is that an additional year of schooling raises labour productivity by at least 5%.

Keywords: economics; education; labour productivity; Papua New Guinea; tuna canneries; developing countries; educated workforce; gender; skilled workers; unskilled workers; schooling.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEED.2009.029306

International Journal of Education Economics and Development, 2009 Vol.1 No.2, pp.156 - 165

Published online: 18 Nov 2009 *

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