In 2003 Kenya abolished user fees in all government primary schools. Analysis of household survey data shows this policy contributed to a shift in demand away from free schools, where net enrollment stagnated after 2003, toward fee-charging private schools, where both enrollment and fee levels...

Existing studies from the United States, Latin America, and Asia provide scant evidence that private schools dramatically improve academic performance relative to public schools. Using data from Kenya — a poor country with weak public institutions — we find a large effect of private...

The recent wave of randomized trials in development economics has provoked criticisms regarding external validity. We investigate two concerns — heterogeneity across beneficiaries and implementers — in a randomized trial of contract teachers in Kenyan schools. The intervention, previously...