Publication: Evaluating Public Per-Student Subsidies to Low-Cost Private Schools : Regression-Discontinuity Evidence from Pakistan
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Published
2011-04-01
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Date
2012-03-19
Author(s)
Barrera-Osorio, Felipe
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Abstract
This study estimates the causal effects of a public per-student subsidy program targeted at low-cost private schools in Pakistan on student enrollment and schooling inputs. Program entry is ultimately conditional on achieving a minimum stipulated student pass rate (cutoff) in a standardized academic test. This mechanism for treatment assignment allows the application of regression-discontinuity (RD) methods to estimate program impacts at the cutoff. Data on two rounds of entry test takers (phase 3 and phase 4) are used. Modeling the entry process of phase-4 test takers as a sharp RD design, the authors find evidence of large positive impacts on the number of students, teachers, classrooms, and blackboards. Modeling the entry process of phase-3 test takers as a partially-fuzzy RD design given treatment crossovers, they do not find evidence of significant program impacts on outcomes of interest. The latter finding is likely due to weak identification arising from a small jump in the probability of treatment at the cutoff.
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“Barrera-Osorio, Felipe; Raju, Dhushyanth. 2011. Evaluating Public Per-Student Subsidies to Low-Cost Private Schools : Regression-Discontinuity Evidence from Pakistan. Policy Research working paper ; no. WPS 5638. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/3402 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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