Do Community-Managed Schools Facilitate Social Capital Accumulation? Evidence from the COGES Project in Burkina Faso

In this paper, we investigate the role of a School Management Committee (COGES) in facili- tating social capital among community members and teachers. We employ unique data from Burkina Faso, where the COGES project was recently introduced. To determine the individual level of social capital of each community member and teacher, we conduct public goods games, one of the standard artefactual field experiments, with monetary rewards. Using in- strumental variable and propensity score matching methods, we obtain several findings. First, we find that the COGES project increases the level of social capital significantly. This finding is robust across different econometric specifications and methodologies. According to our point estimates, the amount of voluntary contribution to public goods increases by 16% to 27%. Second, the social capital facilitation effect of COGES varies based on the characteristics of the participant: while those who are more educated tended to have a lower level of social capital, Muslims have a higher level of social capital with COGES. Third, our qualitative re- sults are maintained if we use the subjective assessment data of social capital based on the General Social Survey (GSS) questions.