Spatial inequality of opportunity in West Africa

Abstract

In this paper, I study spatial inequality of opportunity measured in terms of the causal effect place has on primary completion, in Benin, Cameroon, and Mali. Using a movers design I find that on average moving to a one standard deviation better location at birth increases a child’s probability of completing primary school by 15 percentage points. Estimating locality-year and gender-locality-year place effects I show that place matters more for girls than boys and place effects are correlated with local characteristics such as urbanization, access to electricity, and employment in agriculture. Religion is weakly correlated with average causal place effects but strongly correlated with the gender gap in the effect place has on educational attainment.