Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP12939
Authors: Nava Ashraf; Natalie Bau; Corinne Low; Kathleen McGinn
Abstract: Using a randomized control trial, we examine whether offering adolescent girls non-material resources – specifically, negotiation skills – can improve educational outcomes in a low-income country. In so doing, we provide the first evidence on the effects of an intervention that increased non-cognitive, interpersonal skills during adolescence. Long-run administrative data shows that negotiation training significantly improved educational outcomes over the next three years. The training had greater effects than two alternative treatments (offering girls a safe physical space with female mentors and offering girls information about the returns to education), suggesting that negotiation skills themselves drive the effect. Further evidence from a lab-in-the-field experiment, which simulates parents' educational investment decisions, and a midline survey suggests that negotiation skills improved girls' outcomes by moving households' human capital investments closer to the efficient frontier. This is consistent with an incomplete contracting model, where negotiation allows daughters to strategically cooperate with parents.
Keywords: gender; human capital; noncognitive skills; intrahousehold allocation; strategic cooperation
JEL Codes: D13; I24; J16; O15
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| negotiation skills (C78) | educational outcomes (I26) |
| negotiation training (C78) | educational outcomes (I26) |
| negotiation skills (C78) | household human capital investments (J24) |
| household dynamics (J12) | educational investments (I26) |
| negotiation skills (C78) | strategic cooperation with parents (L24) |
| strategic cooperation with parents (L24) | educational investments (I26) |
| negotiation skills (C78) | long-term educational trajectories (I26) |