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Long-Term Effects of Educational Interventions in Developing Countries

Paper Session

Sunday, Jan. 5, 2020 10:15 AM - 12:15 PM (PDT)

Marriott Marquis, Presidio 1
Hosted By: American Economic Association
  • Chair: Edward Miguel, University of California-Berkeley

Long-Term Effects of Teacher Performance Pay: Experimental Evidence from India

Karthik Muralidharan
,
University of California-San Diego

Abstract

We present results from a five-year long randomized evaluation of group and individual teacher performance pay programs implemented across a large representative sample of government-run rural primary schools in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. We find consistently positive and significant impacts of the individual teacher incentive program on student learning outcomes across all durations of program exposure. Students who completed their full five years of primary school under the program performed significantly better than those in control schools by 0.54 and 0.35 standard deviations in math and language tests respectively. These students also scored 0.52 and 0.3 standard deviations higher in science and social studies tests even though there were no incentives on these subjects. The group teacher incentive program also had positive (and mostly significant) effects on student test scores, but the effect sizes were always smaller than that of the individual incentive program, and were not significant at the end of primary school for the cohort exposed to the program for five years. These results suggest that reforming the compensation structure of public sector employees could play an important role in enhancing the capacity of governments in developing countries to provide more effective services.

School Costs, Short-Run Participation, and Long-Run Outcomes: Evidence from Kenya

David Evans
,
Center for Global Development
Mũthoni Ngatia
,
World Bank

Abstract

In recent decades, the number of evaluated interventions to improve access to school has multiplied, but few studies report long-term impacts, however. This paper reports the impact of an educational intervention that provided school uniforms to children in poor communities in Kenya. The program used a lottery to determine who would receive a school uniform. Receiving a uniform reduced school absenteeism by 37 percent for the average student (7 percentage points) and by 55 percent for children who initially had no uniform (15 percentage points). Eight years after the program began, there is no evidence of sustained impact of the program on highest grade completed or primary school completion rates. A bounding exercise suggests no substantive positive, long-term impacts. These results contribute to a small literature that demonstrates the risk of fade-out of initial impacts of education investments.

Human-Capital Externalities in China

Edward Glaeser
,
Harvard University
Ming Lu
,
Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Abstract

This paper provides evidences of heterogeneous human-capital externality using CHIP 2002, 2007 and 2013 data from urban China. After instrumenting city-level education using the number of relocated university departments across cities in the 1950s, one year more city-level education increases individual hourly wage by 22.0 percent, more than twice the OLS estimate. Human-capital externality is found to be greater for all groups of urban residents in the instrumental variable estimation.

Long-Term and Intergenerational Effects of Education: Evidence from School Construction in Indonesia

Richard Akresh
,
University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign
Daniel Halim
,
World Bank
Marieke Kleemans
,
University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign

Abstract

In 1973, Indonesia began one of the largest school construction programs ever. Exploiting variation across birth cohorts and districts in the number of schools built suggests education benefits for men and women persist 43 years after the program. Exposed men are more likely to be formal workers, work outside agriculture, and migrate. Women are more likely to migrate and have fewer children. Their households have improved living standards and pay more government taxes. Education benefits are transmitted to their children, particularly from mothers to daughters. Intergenerational results are driven by improved marriage partner’s characteristics, including more education and secure employment.
Discussant(s)
Rebecca Thornton
,
University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign
Laura Zimmermann
,
University of Georgia
Gaurav Khanna
,
University of California-San Diego
Richard Akresh
,
University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign
JEL Classifications
  • O1 - Economic Development
  • I2 - Education and Research Institutions