202
Cuesta and Martinez-Vazquez
Figure 5.1 Effects of Public Education Spending on the Probability of Attending School, Liberia probability of access by type, decrease in aid
1.0 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5
0 0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
type preintervention
postintervention
Source: Abras, Cuesta, and Narayan 2011. Note: See table 5.4 for description of eight types of children.
factors (from individual characteristics to public spending) that are relevant from a policy point of view. Table 5.4 and figure 5.1 report the results of the microsimulations using 2008 data for Liberia. Information on individual and household characteristics, educational attendance, and private spending on education is from the Liberian Institute for Statistics and Geo-Information Services’ Core Welfare Indicators Questionnaire (LISGIS 2007), and information on educational public spending is from the World Bank’s Public Expenditure Management and Financial Accountability Review (World Bank 2009). The list of circumstances considered relevant in Liberia includes gender and age of the child, number of children and elderly in the household, location (urban or rural), head of household’s gender and education, household wealth, family structure (presence of the parents and orphan status), and region. The opportunity analyzed is access to education among children aged 6–15, whose observed average access is 63 percent. Table 5.4 compares the estimated probability of access to education of eight types of individuals, as determined by three fundamental circumstances: child gender, urban or rural location of the household, and education of the household head. The table shows that