Macroeconomic Effects of ‘Free’ Secondary Schooling in the Developing World

Previously circulated as “Aggregate and Distributional Effects of ‘Free’ Secondary Schooling in the Developing World.” For helpful comments we thank Ufuk Akcigit, Marco Bassetto, Natalie Bau, Kevin Donovan, Raquel Fernández, Chang-Tai Hsieh, Aubhik Khan, Jeremy Pearce, Karthik Muralidharan, Michael Peters, Tommaso Porzio, Pascual Restrepo, Todd Schoellman, Julia Thomas and seminar/conference participants at Berkeley, Chicago, City University of Hong Kong, the Development Bank of Japan, the Federal Re-serve Banks of Minneapolis and St. Louis, Georgetown, Hitotsubashi, Kyoto, NYU, Ohio State, Penn State, Riverside, Tohoku, the Cowles Foundation Conference on Structural Change, the UCLA Hu-man Capital and Development Conference and the NBER Summer Institute. We thank the IGC, JSPS (Kakenhi No. 18K01505 and No. 22K01399), and GRIPS Policy Research Center for financial support and Ariel Akerman, Soala Ekine, and Isaac Otoo for outstanding research assistance. All potential errors are our own. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

• March 9, 2023