Instrumenting the Effect of Terrorism on Education in Kenya

Marco Alfano () and Joseph-Simon Goerlach ()
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Marco Alfano: Lancaster University
Joseph-Simon Goerlach: Bocconi University
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Joseph-Simon Görlach

No 16544, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper estimates the effect of exposure to terrorist violence on education. Since terrorists may choose targets endogenously, we construct a set of novel instruments. To that end, we leverage exogenous variation from a local terrorist group's revenues and its affiliation with al-Qaeda. Across several Kenyan datasets we find that attacks suppress school enrolment more than predicted by difference-in-differences-type estimators. This indicates that terrorists target areas experiencing unobserved, positive shocks. Evidence suggests fears and concerns as mechanisms of impact, rather than educational supply.

Keywords: conflict; education; instrumental variables (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 I25 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 56 pages
Date: 2023-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-dev, nep-edu and nep-ure
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Working Paper: Instrumenting the effect of terrorism on education in Kenya (2023)
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