The Effects of "Girl-Friendly" Schools: Evidence from the BRIGHT School Construction Program in Burkina Faso

Harounan Kazianga, Dan Levy, Leigh Linden () and Matt Sloan

No 18115, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We evaluate the causal effects of a program that constructed high quality "girl-friendly" primary schools in Burkina Faso, using a regression discontinuity design 2.5 years after the program started. We find that the program increased enrollment of all children between the ages of 5 and 12 by 20 percentage points and increased their test scores by 0.45 standard deviations. The change in test scores for those children caused to attend school by the program is 2.2 standard deviations. We also find that the program was particularly effective for girls, increasing their enrollment rate by 5 percentage points more than boys', although this did not translate into a differential effect on test scores. Disentangling the effects of school access from the unique characteristics of the new schools, we find that the unique characteristics were responsible for a 13 percentage point increase in enrollment and 0.35 standard deviations in test scores, while simply providing a school increased enrollment by 26.5 percentage points and test scores by 0.323 standard deviations. The unique characteristics of the school account for the entire difference in the treatment effect by gender.

JEL-codes: I24 I25 I28 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
Note: CH ED LS PE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published as Harounan Kazianga & Dan Levy & Leigh L. Linden & Matt Sloan, 2013. "The Effects of "Girl-Friendly" Schools: Evidence from the BRIGHT School Construction Program in Burkina Faso," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(3), pages 41-62, July.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w18115.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Effects of "Girl-Friendly" Schools: Evidence from the BRIGHT School Construction Program in Burkina Faso (2013)
Working Paper: The Effects of "Girl-Friendly" Schools: Evidence from the BRIGHT School Construction Program in Burkina Faso (2012)
Working Paper: The Effects of "Girl-Friendly" Schools: Evidence from the BRIGHT School Construction Program in Burkina Faso (2012)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18115

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w18115

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().