Do Better Roads Increase School Enrollment? Evidence from a Unique Road Policy in India

Rural Roads and Local Economic Development

“…3 Most closely related are papers that estimate the impact of rural road programs in Bangladesh (Khandker et al, 2009;Khandker and Koolwal, 2011;Ali, 2011), Ethiopia (Dercon et al, 2009), Indonesia (Gibson and Olivia, 2010), Papua New Guinea (Gibson and Rozelle, 2003) and Vietnam (Mu and van de Walle, 2011). Concurrent research on the PMGSY demonstrates that districts that built more roads experienced improved economic outcomes (Aggarwal, 2017), and that PMGSY roads lead to gains in agriculture (Shamdasani, 2016) and educational outcomes (Mukherjee, 2012;Adukia et al, 2017). Other papers also suggest that the lack of rural transport infrastructure may be a significant contributor to rural underdevelopment.…”

Introduction: A Regional Overview

“…Bihar's Mukhyamantri Balika Cycle Yojna 12 provides girls who enroll in grade 9 with a bicycle. Both programs were found to have substantial impact on enrollment, but none on test scores (Mukherjee 2011;Muralidharan and Prakash 2013).…”

The Effect of High-density Residential Developments in Korea on Utilization of Public Transport - Focusing on the Sequence of Supply between Apartments and Subways in Seoul

“…A programme of maintaining rural pathways and feeder-roads in Peru, increased primary school enrolment for girls by 7% and secondary school attendance for boys by 10% (McSweeney and Remy, 2008). Mukherjee (2012), in an analysis of the databases associated with the large Indian PMGSY rural road project, suggested school attendance increased by 22% as a result of the new village access roads. Enrolment from disadvantaged groups ('backward castes') increased significantly, but so did enrolment from other groups (Mukherjee, 2012).…”

“…Mukherjee (2012), in an analysis of the databases associated with the large Indian PMGSY rural road project, suggested school attendance increased by 22% as a result of the new village access roads. Enrolment from disadvantaged groups ('backward castes') increased significantly, but so did enrolment from other groups (Mukherjee, 2012). Aggarwal (2014) analysed other Indian PMGSY datasets and concluded that there was a 5% improvement in primary educational enrolment for 5-14 year old children, without significant gender differences.…”