Ten-Year Impacts of Burkina Faso’s BRIGHT Program

V. COST-EFFECTIVENESS AND COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS
As with all interventions, the ultimate question is not simply whether or not the intervention
is effective, but rather, how effective the intervention is relative to other programs or policies.
Answering this larger question requires comparing the treatment effect estimates presented in the
previous chapters with those of other programs. In doing so, however, we are interested in not
only the relative effectiveness of the different programs but also their relative costs. For example,
two programs might yield the same effects, but the one that can do so for less cost might be the
better policy option.
We conduct these analyses within the constraints imposed by the research design. Because
the treatment effect estimates reflect the impact on children living in villages selected for a
BRIGHT school relative to the educational opportunities that exist in the unselected villages, we
can estimate the cost-effectiveness and benefits only for costs incurred in villages selected for
BRIGHT relative to the expenditures on schools in unselected villages. In other words, we assess
the effectiveness and benefits of only the additional costs that were expended in the selected
villages due to the much higher rates of constructing BRIGHT schools. Our methodology does
not allow us to assess, for example, the effectiveness or benefits associated with the total costs
expended on BRIGHT by the MCC. Specifically, about 56 percent of the actual investment in
BRIGHT by MCC is accounted for in the cost-benefit analysis.
The first strategy for making this comparison is called cost-effectiveness analysis. This
analysis results in a statistic that directly compares the treatment effects of the program presented
in the previous chapters to the costs of the program. Specifically, it is the ratio of the effects of
an intervention to the intervention’s costs—that is, cost per unit of effect. For enrollment, for
example, the program provides the benefit of causing children to be enrolled in school. The costeffectiveness
of the program for enrollment estimates the average cost of enrolling a child in
school for a single year by dividing the number of children caused to be enrolled in school by the
cost of the program. Specifically, it measures the cost of causing one additional child to attend
school for one year, which we measure in terms of dollars per child-years of enrollment.
The advantage of this measure is that it requires the fewest assumptions when compared to
the alternative analyses discussed below. The impact estimates are taken as estimated in the
previous chapters; the only additional information required is the cost of running the program up
to the point of the survey. However, the set of programs to which BRIGHT can be compared
using this analysis is also much smaller. In what follows, we present a cost-effectiveness analysis
of the BRIGHT program on test scores and enrollment. Under some circumstances, we can
directly compare the program to other education programs that target these outcomes. 38
However, we cannot use this analysis to compare BRIGHT to education programs that target
38
It is also important to note that comparisons are not always possible even if education programs target the same
outcomes if both programs involved more than one outcome. For example, if a comparison program is less costeffective
than BRIGHT at improving test scores and enrollment, BRIGHT is clearly better. However, if BRIGHT is
more cost-effective at test score improvements, but less cost-effective at improving enrollment, this methodology
provides no means of determining the better policy option.
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