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We revisit the impact of remittances on educational attainment of school-age children in Nepal, paying particular attention to differences between girls and boys. A heightened interest in understanding the impact of remitting practices on a variety of economic variables has emerged as remittances to developing countries continue to rise. In Nepal, the World Bank reports that remittances amounted to $1.2 billion (US dollars) in 2005, while GDP was $8.2 billion and official development assistance totaled $425 million (World Bank 2007). We use the 1995/1996 Nepal Living Standards Survey (NLSS) to examine the impact of remittances on human capital investments for female and male children. If remittances do affect human capital positively, then not only will remittances affect long-run growth in Nepal, but the opportunities for women in Nepal should improve as the female population becomes more educated.The effect of remittances on human capital investment is unclear a priori. Increasing income through remittances may increase investment in children's schooling by relaxing household budget and capital constraints. Conversely, household absenteeism pressures children to work in the home, reducing time for education. Our data provide an opportunity to separate the effect of household disruption from the income effect of remittances on the decision to invest in schooling. We are able to measure the number of adults living outside the household so that we may control for absenteeism in estimating the impact of remittances on household schooling choices. We ask if the impact varies by gender and age group (young child versus older child). Our results indicate that young children benefit more from remittances, but the benefits, controlling

A heightened interest in understanding the remitting practices of immigrants and their impact on a variety of economic indicators has emerged as remittances to developing countries have risen substantially over the past decade. If remittances primarily enhance consumption, they may have no lasting impact on economic growth. However, through asset accumulation and human capital investment, remittances may serve as a vehicle for growth. In this paper, we use the 2010 Nepal Living Standards Survey III (NLSS III) to examine how remittances affect household expenditures on human capital investment. Overall, our findings suggest that at the margin, remittances do contribute to human capital investment, but this effect varies substantially by school quality within Nepal. In addition, our results indicate that internal remittances (remittances from household members migrating internally) have a greater impact on education than do external remittances. We posit that this may be due to a higher value placed on Nepali education by internal migrants as compared to the education needed for foreign job opportunities by migrants abroad.JEL codes: J61, I25, F22, F24, H52, O15

This article examines the effect third‐party certification has on a market characterized by adverse selection. Using an original data set from the market for young thoroughbreds, we show that certification alleviates problems of adverse selection by examining the effect certification has on breeder decisions to retain or sell horses and the effect these decisions have on observed prices. Data on the racetrack performance of the horses confirm the results.

The empirical literature of the influence of unions on productivity is extended by considering the effect in an industry with heterogeneous firms. Recent theoretical papers suggest that, in such an industry, unions will tend to organize the exogenously 'more productive' firms. Thus, a spurious correlation between unions and productivity may emerge. We test this hypothesis by estimating production functions for coal with data from Eastern Kentucky underground coal mines. The aspect of mine heterogeneity that we focus on is the width of the mine's seam of coal. Wider seams increase productivity. Empirically, we find that unions disproportionately organize mines with wider seams and this accounts for the positive relationship between unions and productivity observed in our data. In fact, once seam thickness is accounted for, the estimated effect of unions on productivity is negative.

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