Child Ability and Household Human Capital Investment Decisions in Burkina Faso

Akresh, Richard ; Bagby, Emilie ; de Walque, Damien ; Kazianga, Harounan

关键词: ACCOUNT;    ACHIEVEMENT;    ACHIEVEMENT TESTS;    AVERAGE SCORE;    BIOLOGICAL CHILDREN;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-5370
RP-ID  :  WPS5370

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Using data they collected in ruralBurkina Faso, the authors examine how children'scognitive abilities influence resource constrainedhouseholds' decisions to invest in their education.This paper uses a direct measure of child ability for allprimary school-aged children, regardless of current schoolenrollment. The analysis explicitly incorporates directmeasures of the ability of each child s siblings (bothabsolute and relative measures) to show how sibling rivalryexerts an impact on the parentsdecision of whether and howmuch to invest in their child s education. The findingsindicate that children with one standard deviation higherown ability are 16 percent more likely to be currentlyenrolled, while having a higher ability sibling lowerscurrent enrollment by 16 percent and having two higherability siblings lowers enrollment by 30 percent. Theresults are robust to addressing the potential reversecausality of schooling influencing child ability measuresand using alternative cognitive tests to measure ability.