Working Paper: NBER ID: w31388
Authors: Alex Eble; Maya Escueta
Abstract: In settings of extreme poverty, how do demand and supply combine to produce child learning? In rural Gambia, caregivers with high aspirations for their children's future, measured before children start school, invest substantially more than others in children’s education. Despite this, essentially no children are literate or numerate three years later. When villages receive a highly impactful, teacher-focused supply-side intervention, however, children of high-aspirations caregivers are 25 percent more likely to achieve literacy and numeracy than others in the same village. We estimate patterns of substitutability and complementarity between demand and supply in generating learning that change with skill difficulty.
Keywords: education; poverty; demand and supply; learning outcomes; Gambia
JEL Codes: I24; I25; I28; I30; O12; O15
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Caregivers' aspirations for their children's education (I24) | Educational investment (I26) |
| Educational investment (I26) | Child learning outcomes (I21) |
| High-quality teacher-focused intervention (I24) | Child learning outcomes (I21) |
| Family demand (high aspirations) (D12) | Child learning outcomes (when quality is improved) (I21) |
| Family demand (high aspirations) (D12) | Child learning outcomes (in absence of quality supply) (I21) |
| High educational aspirations (I23) | Better learning outcomes (under improved supply conditions) (I21) |
| Career aspirations (J62) | Learning outcomes (comparison with other children) (I24) |