Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP10527
Authors: Pedro Carneiro; Oswald Koussihoud; Costas Meghir; Corina Mommaerts; Nathalie Lahire
Abstract: The impact of school resources on the quality of education in developing countries may depend crucially on whether resources are targeted efficiently. In this paper we use a randomized experiment to analyze the impact of a school grants program in Senegal, which decentralized a portion of the country?s education budget. We find large positive effects on test scores at younger grades that persist at least two years. We show that these effects are concentrated among schools that focused funds on human resources improvements rather than school materials, suggesting that teachers and principals may be a central determinant of school quality.
Keywords: child development; clustered randomized control trials; decentralization; quality of education; school resources
JEL Codes: H52; I22; I25; O15
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Receipt of school grants (I28) | Improvements in student test scores (I21) |
| School grants program (I28) | Significant improvements in test scores (I21) |
| School grants program (I28) | Improvements in test scores for students, particularly in the second grade (I21) |
| School grants program (I28) | Effects persisting for at least two years (C41) |
| Focus on human resource improvements (J24) | More pronounced effects in southern schools (I24) |