The effect of non-personnel resources on educational outcomes: Evidence from South Africa

dc.creatorPellicer, Miquel
dc.creatorPiraino, Patrizio
dc.date2015-04-16T12:29:28Z
dc.date2015-04-16T12:29:28Z
dc.date2015-04
dc.date.accessioned2015-05-28T10:06:47Z
dc.date.available2015-05-28T10:06:47Z
dc.date.issued2015-05-28
dc.descriptionLittle credible evidence exists on the effect of material resources on school quality in developing countries. This paper studies the impact of non-personnel funding on educational outcomes exploiting the peculiar way in which these resources are allocated in South Africa. Government funding follows quintiles constructed on the basis of school poverty scores. This creates discrete jumps in the allocation of funding and we use a regression discontinuity approach to analyze its effects on school outcomes at the end of high school. Our results show a small but positive effect of resources on student throughput during the last years of high school, and on the number of students writing the matriculation exam. However, additional resources do not translate into a higher number of successful exams, leading to an overall negative effect on pass rates. We suggest that these findings may have to do with schools reacting to the per-pupil nature of funding.
dc.descriptionMiquel Pellicer, GIGA, Hamburg and SALDRU Patrizio Piraino, University of Cape Town
dc.descriptionWe acknowledge funding from the EU's Seventh Framework Programme through the NOPOOR project: "Enhancing knowledge for renewed policies against poverty". We would like to thank participants at the SALDRU seminar at the University of Cape Town, and at the RP3 GIGA seminar for useful comments. We are grateful to Rob Garlick for detailed and very useful feedback on an earlier draft. All errors are ours.
dc.identifierPellicer, M., Piraino, P. (2015). The eff ect of non-personnel resources on educational outcomes: Evidence from South Africa. A Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit Working Paper Number 144. Cape Town: SALDRU, University of Cape Town
dc.identifier978-1-928281-05-4
dc.identifierhttp://hdl.handle.net/11090/777
dc.identifier.ris TY - Working Paper DA - 2015-05-28 DB - OpenUCT DP - University of Cape Town KW - Non-personnel resources KW - Education KW - South Africa LK - https://open.uct.ac.za PB - University of Cape Town PY - 2015 T1 - The effect of non-personnel resources on educational outcomes: Evidence from South Africa TI - The effect of non-personnel resources on educational outcomes: Evidence from South Africa UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11090/777 ER - en_ZA
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11090/777
dc.languageen
dc.publisher.departmentSALDRUen_ZA
dc.publisher.facultyFaculty of Commerceen_ZA
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Cape Town
dc.relationSALDRU Working Paper;144
dc.subjectNon-personnel resources
dc.subjectEducation
dc.subjectSouth Africa
dc.titleThe effect of non-personnel resources on educational outcomes: Evidence from South Africa
dc.typeWorking Paper
uct.type.publicationResearchen_ZA
uct.type.resourceWorking Paperen_ZA
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