This paper uses the introduction of preparatory school classes targeting six-year-old children in Romania to study whether universal, compulsory, public care provision could increase female employment. Results from difference-in-difference estimations show that the reform resulted in rising...

Teachers are the single most important input to learning, and in many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa teachers' emoluments account for most of the spending on basic education (Bold et al., 2017). However, in many countries in the region teachers are poorly distributed between schools. Schools in...

The paper presents a first global investigation of the longer-term inequality implications of COVID-19 by examining the effect of school closures on the ability of children from different countries and backgrounds to engage in continued learning throughout the pandemic, and their implications...

This paper presents simulations of the potential effect of COVID-19-related school closures on schooling and learning outcomes. It considers four scenarios-varying in both the duration of school closures and the effectiveness of any mitigation strategies being deployed by governments. Using data...

As women increasingly entered the labor force throughout the late 20th century, the challenges of balancing work and family came to the forefront. We leverage pronounced changes in the availability of public schooling for young children—through duration expansions to the kindergarten day—to...

School autonomy and parental participation both influence learning. Autonomy raises the rent available at the school and participation determines whether student learning will benefit from that rent. It is therefore important who is empowered through decentralization