17 resultados para Abu Sueir
Resumo:
In contrast to the remarkable progress in developing countries in improving primary education, access to higher education in many countries remains limited, especially in rural areas where the quality of education is inadequate. We evaluate a DVD-based distance-learning program in rural Bangladesh, targeted at students aiming to take university entrance tests. We conducted two experiments: one to evaluate the effect of the distance-learning program and the second to determine the demand and price sensitivity. Our first experiment shows that the DVD-based distance-learning program has a considerable positive effect on the number of students passing entrance exams. This effect does not depend on cognitive scores, but does depend on non-cognitive attributes, indicating the importance of commitment, which is imposed through our program. In the second experiment, we offered a random subsidy to interested participants. The uptake decision is price-sensitive, although the price sensitivity is not correlated with students' past academic performance or their socio-economic status, suggesting that increasing the price should not disproportionately exclude poor students.
Resumo:
Political protests in the form of strikes, locally known as hartal, remain quite common in the Indian subcontinent countries. Such a form of protests is associated with mass movement, intended to cause a total shutdown of economic activities and often results in coercion, violence, and damage to both public and private properties. Utilizing the World Bank Enterprise survey data of 2007 and 2013 of Bangladesh, this study examines the impacts of hartals on manufacturing firms. We find that political protests significantly increase costs for firms. Using flexible cost function based on factor analysis we see that the factor-neutral effect of strikes is positive and statistically significant, showing evidence of a reduction in firm productivity due to hartals. However, we did not find any evidence for systematic factor re-optimization by firms – in response to political strikes – suggesting that firms do not reallocate factor shares to tackle uncertain and irregular shocks like hartals.