Education and Poverty in Morocco: A Computable General Equilibrium Micro-simulation Analysis

Abstract

The paper uses a micro-simulation computable general equilibrium model (CGE) to analyze the impact on poverty of public spending in higher education in Morocco. The model incorporates 7062 households derived from the 2007 National Survey on Household Living Standards (ENNVM). Two scenarios are simulated: a 100% reduction in the unit cost of higher education supported by households and a 50% reduction in public spending on higher education. In this study, it is assumed that the investment behavior of households is linked to the share of the unit cost financed by the government in higher education. The results show that the policy of exempting households from bearing any unit cost of higher education encourages them to invest massively in education, which leads to increasing their income and consequently improving welfare and reducing poverty and inequalities. On the other hand, the reduction in public investment in higher education affects negatively the behavior of households to invest in education which leads to a decrease in welfare, an increase in poverty and a rise of inequalities.