TY  - JOUR
AU  - Kazianga,Harounan
AU  - Levy,Dan
AU  - Linden,Leigh L.
AU  - Sloan,Matt
TI  - The Effects of “Girl-Friendly” Schools: Evidence from the BRIGHT School Construction Program in Burkina Faso
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 18115
PY  - 2012
Y2  - May 2012
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18115
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18115.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Harounan Kazianga
Department of Economics
Oklahoma State University
Business 324
Stillwater, OK 74078
Tel: (405) 744-5110
E-Mail: harounan.kazianga@okstate.edu

Dan Levy
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
79 JFK Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
E-Mail: dan_levy@harvard.edu

Leigh L. Linden
Department of Economics
The University of Texas at Austin
2225 Speedway
BRB 1.116, C3100
Austin, Texas 78712
Tel: (512) 475-8556
E-Mail: leigh.linden@austin.utexas.edu

Matthew Sloan
Mathematica Policy Research
1100 1st Street, NE, 12th Floor
Washington, DC 20002-4221
E-Mail: MSloan@Mathematica-Mpr.com
AB  - 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.
ER  -