Publication: When Can School Inputs Improve Test Scores?
Date
2004-02
ISSN
Published
2004-02
Author(s)
Abstract
The relationship between school inputs
and educational outcomes is critical for educational policy.
The authors recognize that households will respond optimally
to changes in school inputs and study how such responses
affect the link between school inputs and cognitive
achievement. To incorporate the forward-looking behavior of
households, the authors present a household optimization
model relating household resources and cognitive achievement
to school inputs. In this framework, if household and school
inputs are technical substitutes in the production function
for cognitive achievement, the impact of unanticipated
inputs is larger than that of anticipated inputs. The
authors test the predictions of the model for nonsalary cash
grants to schools using a unique data set from Zambia. They
find that household educational expenditures and school cash
grants are substitutes with a coefficient of elasticity
between -0.35 and -0.52. Consistent with the optimization
model, anticipated funds have no impact on cognitive
achievement, but unanticipated funds lead to significant
improvements in learning. This methodology has important
implications for educational research and policy.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Das, Jishnu; Dercon, Stefan; Habyarimana, James; Krishnan, Pramila. 2004. When Can School Inputs Improve Test Scores?. Policy Research Working Paper;No.3217. © World Bank, Washington, D.C.. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/14739 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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