The medium-term impact of the primary education stipend in rural Bangladesh

Abstract

This paper investigates the long-term impact of Bangladesh's primary education stipend (PES) programme on a range of individual and household welfare measures using a unique longitudinal study spanning the years 2000–2006. Using covariate matching and difference-in-difference methods, the programme is shown to have negligible impacts on school enrolments, household expenditures, calorie consumption, and protein consumption. At the individual level, the PES has a negative impact on grade progression, especially among boys from poor households who are ineligible to receive stipends at the secondary level. The programme does, however, lead to improvements in height-for-age among girls and body mass index among boys. Nonetheless, the impacts of the PES are remarkably small for a programme of its size. Poor targeting, particularly limited coverage and lack of geographical targeting, plus the declining real value of the stipend, are the most plausible reasons for this lack of impact.