Revisiting the Role of Education for Agricultural Productivity

Various recent cross‐country regressions have detected insignificant or even surprisingly negative effects of schooling on agricultural productivity. Applying advanced panel econometric techniques to a sample of 95 developing and emerging countries from 1961 to 2002, we show that these results are due to a problematic reliance on enrollment and literacy indicators. Using data on educational attainment, we instead find a sizable and significant impact of schooling (avg. increase of approx. 3.2% per year of schooling) on agricultural productivity that is robust to estimation methods and model specification. We also find that returns from schooling are higher in technologically more advanced countries.