The Marginal Benefit of Bicycles in Education Programs: An Evaluation Using Optimal Full Matching

Abstract

We evaluate the impact that bicycle provision has on education and empowerment outcomes for girls in remote communities. Bicycles were provided as a sub-component of a large multidimensional girls' education program implemented across rural Zimbabwe. The bicycles and the larger program were designed to address barriers experienced by the most marginalized children in these communities, including girls who have to travel long distances to get to school. To isolate the marginal impact of the bicycle program, we identify a counterfactual group from the larger program's treatment group using a novel matching approach referred to as "optimal full matching." Optimal full matching leads to a more balanced match across pre-treatment characteristics than more common matching exercises that use one-to-one or one-to-many matching. This improved match quality has implications for the resulting treatment effects. Using this approach, we show that the bicycle program improved attendance and girls' sense of empowerment, but unlike other bicycle programs implemented independently, there was no evidence of improved learning.

Keywords: gender, bicycles, development, matching, education