Analizamos las decrecientes correlaciones entre el gasto en educación y los resultados del aprendizaje para abordar dos preguntas fundamentales: ¿Los sistemas educativos con diferentes niveles de gasto en la educación tienen diferentes niveles de rendimiento de los estudiantes? Si es así,...

The Mexican Government initiated two innovative programs cash transfer schemes in the last decade: PROGRESA, which is a national anti-poverty scheme directed at chronic rural poverty, and PROCAMPO, a scheme designed to compensate farmers for the negative price effects of NAFTA. The analysis of...

This paper analyzes the effects of increased shared computer access in secondary schools in Peru. Administrative data are used to identify, through propensity-score matching, two groups of schools with similar observable educational inputs but different intensity in computer access. Extensive...

Many developing countries are allocating significant resources to expanding technology access in schools. Whether these investments will translate into measurable educational improvements remains an open question because of the limited evidence available. This paper contributes to filling that...

In policy circles a lively debate exists regarding the effects on educational outcomes of introducing computers in schools. A number of empirical studies have measured its effect on test scores. There is a lack of empirical evidence, however, on the effects of this type of intervention on...

In today’s knowledge-based societies, understanding basic scientific concepts and the capacity to structure and solve scientific questions is more critical than ever. Accordingly, in this paper we test an innovative methodology for teaching science and environment in public primary schools...

Although many countries are aggressively implementing the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program, there is a lack of empirical evidence on its effects. This paper presents the impact of the first large-scale randomized evaluation of the OLPC program, using data collected after 15 months of...

While decreasing inequality is generally considered desirable, and there is a growing understanding of which policies do and do not promote equality, much less is known regarding why these policies are adopted to varying degrees of intensity in different times and places. To explain this...

Evidence on the impacts of a large-scale expansion in public preprimary education is limited and mostly circumscribed to high and middle-income countries. This paper estimates the effects of such an expansion on progression in primary school in rural communities of Guatemala. Combining...

This paper presents results from a randomized control trial in which approximately 1,000 OLPC XO laptops were provided for home use to children attending primary schools in Lima, Peru. The intervention increased access and use of home computers, with some substitution away from computer use...