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Incentivizing school attendance in the presence of parent-child information frictions

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  • De Walque,Damien B. C. M.
  • Valente,Christine

Abstract

Education conditional cash transfer programs may increase school attendance in part due to the information they transmit to parents about their child's attendance. This paper presents experimental evidence that the information content of an education conditional cash transfer program, when given to parents independently of any transfer, can have a substantial effect on school attendance. The effect is as large as 75 percent of the effect of a conditional cash transfer incentivizing parents, and not significantly different from it. In contrast, a conditional transfer program incentivizing children instead of parents is nearly twice as effective as an"information only"treatment providing the same information to parents about their child's attendance. Taken together, these results suggest that children have substantial agency in their schooling decisions. The paper replicates the findings from most evaluations of conditional cash transfers that gains in attendance achieved by incentivizing parents financially do not translate into gains in test scores. But it finds that both the information only treatment and the alternative intervention incentivizing children substantially improve math test scores.

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  • De Walque,Damien B. C. M. & Valente,Christine, 2018. "Incentivizing school attendance in the presence of parent-child information frictions," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8476, The World Bank.
  • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:8476
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    Cited by:

    1. Dinkelman, Taryn & Berlinski, Samuel & Busso, Matias & Martinez A., Claudia, 2021. "Reducing Parent-School Information Gaps and Improving Education Outcomes: Evidence from High-Frequency Text Messages," CEPR Discussion Papers 15949, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Katy Bergstrom & Berk Özler, 2023. "Improving the Well-Being of Adolescent Girls in Developing Countries," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank Group, vol. 38(2), pages 179-212.
    3. Noam Angrist & Peter Bergman & Moitshepi Matsheng, 2020. "School’s Out: Experimental Evidence on Limiting Learning Loss Using “Low-Tech” in a Pandemic," NBER Working Papers 28205, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Noam Angrist & Peter Bergman & Moitshepi Matsheng, 2022. "Experimental evidence on learning using low-tech when school is out," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 6(7), pages 941-950, July.
    5. De Walque,Damien B. C. M. & Chukwuma,Adanna Deborah Ugochi & Ayivi Guedehoussou,Nono Akpedje & Koshkakaryan,Marianna, 2020. "Invitations, Incentives, and Conditions : A Randomized Evaluation of Demand-Side Interventions for Health Screenings in Armenia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9346, The World Bank.
    6. Rachel Cassidy & Anaya Dam & Wendy Janssens & Umair Kiani & Karlijn Morsink, 2022. "Father of the Bride, or Steel Magnolias? Targeting men, women or both to reduce child marriage," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 22-087/V, Tinbergen Institute.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Taxation&Subsidies; Educational Sciences; Services&Transfers to Poor; Access of Poor to Social Services; Economic Assistance; Disability; Conditional Cash Transfers; Economics of Education;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I22 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Educational Finance; Financial Aid
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
    • L31 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Nonprofit Institutions; NGOs; Social Entrepreneurship
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

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