2024-03-28T15:18:23
124141
Thu Mar 28 15:18:26 EDT 2024
Measuring Skills in Developing Countries
Rachid Laajaj
Karen Macours
124141
https://doi.org/10.3886/E124141V1
Measures of cognitive, noncognitive,
and technical skills are increasingly used to analyze the determinants of skill
formation or the role of skills in economic decisions in developing and
developed countries. Yet in most cases, these measures have only been validated
in high-income countries. This paper tests the reliability and validity of some
of the most commonly used skills measures in a rural developing context. A
survey experiment with a series of skills measurements was administered to more
than 900 farmers in western Kenya, and the same questions were asked again
after three weeks to test the reliability of the measures. To test predictive
power, the study also collected information on agricultural practices and
production during the four following seasons. The results show the cognitive
skills measures are reliable and internally consistent, while technical skills
are difficult to capture and very noisy. The evidence further suggests that
measurement error in noncognitive skills is non-classical, as correlations
between questions are driven in part by the answering patterns of the respondents
and the phrasing of the questions. Addressing both random and systematic
measurement error using common psychometric practices and repeated measures
leads to improvements and clearer predictions, but does not address all
concerns. We replicate the main parts of the analysis for farmers in Colombia,
and obtain similar results. The paper provides a cautionary tale for naïve
interpretations of skill measures. It also points to the importance of
addressing measurement challenges to establish the relationship of different
skills with economic outcomes. Based on these findings, the paper derives guidelines
for skill measurement and interpretation in similar contexts.
Economics
skills
developing country
agriculture
Kenya, Siaya
1/1/2012 – 12/31/2015 (Year 2012 to 2015)
survey data