This study is the first to explore long-run trends of numeracy for the 1820-1949 period in 165 countries, and its contribution to growth. Estimates of the long-run numeracy development of most countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, America, and Europe are presented, using age-heaping...

Not only the colonial period, but also the pre-colonial times might have influenced later development patterns. In this study we assess a potential "pre-colonial legacy" hypothesis for the case of the Andean region. In order to analyze the hypothesis, we study the human capital of Inca Indios,...

Informal school fees – for uniforms, books, and other supplies – are substantial in developing countries, often several times formal tuition. We evaluate a scholarship program that alleviated informal fees for girls in a subset of Gambian secondary schools. The program is unique because it...

In 2013, Tanzania introduced "Big Results Now in Education", a low-stakes accountability program that published both nationwide and within-district school rankings. Using data from the universe of school performance from 2011-2016, we identify the impacts of the reform using a...

Food for Education (FFE) programmes have been implemented in developing countries since the 1960s. This paper examines the impact of the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) school feeding programme on pupils' attendance and girls' enrolment rate within primary schools in northern Burkina Faso. Using...

How does violence in origin areas affect the educational outcomes of refugees in their destinations? Using administrative panel data, we find that heightened violence in the hometowns of Syrian students leads to improvements in their school outcomes in Türkiye. Turkish language and Math scores...

This paper estimates the impact on children's learning of one specific education technology (EdTech) intervention in Bangladesh: providing tablets with educational software, combined with private tutoring, to out-of-school students using a randomized control trial. The provision of tablets and...

Education is one of the key resources in the fight against poverty. While substantial progress has been made in terms of school enrollment, evidence suggests that educational quality is still alarmingly low in many developing countries. Various explanations have been suggested, but one very...

Reducing the gender gap in education is a primary goal for many countries. Two major challenges for many girls are the distance to school and their safety when commuting to school. In Zambia, we studied the impact of providing a bicycle to a school-going girl who lives more than 3 km from the...