Child Ability and Household Human Capital Investment Decisions in Burkina Faso

35 Pages Posted: 20 Apr 2016

See all articles by Richard Akresh

Richard Akresh

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Emilie Bagby

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Damien de Walque

World Bank - Development Research Group (DECRG); World Bank

Harounan Kazianga

Oklahoma State University - Stillwater

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: July 1, 2010

Abstract

Using data they collected in rural Burkina Faso, the authors examine how children's cognitive abilities influence resource constrained households' decisions to invest in their education. This paper uses a direct measure of child ability for all primary school-aged children, regardless of current school enrollment. The analysis explicitly incorporates direct measures of the ability of each child?s siblings (both absolute and relative measures) to show how sibling rivalry exerts an impact on the parents? decision of whether and how much to invest in their child?s education. The findings indicate that children with one standard deviation higher own ability are 16 percent more likely to be currently enrolled, while having a higher ability sibling lowers current enrollment by 16 percent and having two higher ability siblings lowers enrollment by 30 percent. The results are robust to addressing the potential reverse causality of schooling influencing child ability measures and using alternative cognitive tests to measure ability.

Keywords: Educational Sciences, Youth and Governance, Primary Education, Gender and Law, Street Children

Suggested Citation

Akresh, Richard and Bagby, Emilie and de Walque, Damien and Kazianga, Harounan, Child Ability and Household Human Capital Investment Decisions in Burkina Faso (July 1, 2010). World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 5370, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1646793

Richard Akresh (Contact Author)

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ( email )

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IZA Institute of Labor Economics

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Emilie Bagby

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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Damien De Walque

World Bank - Development Research Group (DECRG)

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Harounan Kazianga

Oklahoma State University - Stillwater ( email )

Stillwater, OK 74078-0555
United States