DETERMINANTS OF SCHOOL ENROLLMENT AND PERFORMANCE IN BULGARIA: THE ROLE OF INCOME AMONG THE POOR AND RICH

Where credit markers are incomplete, households must finance educational investments out of past savings or current earnings. Poor households, with low savings and low current income, may accordingly be highly constrained in their educational choices, whereas richer households are not. The commonly used log-expenditures specification of the relationship of income to school enrollment may therefore be imprecise. Using data from the 1995 Bulgarian Integrated Household Survey, this analysis shows that the roughly 50% of Bulgarian households with expenditures per adult-equivalent of less than 5,000 Leva (1995 prices) are financially constrained in their educational choices, while richer households are not.