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PRWP

Reproducibility package for Demographic Transition And Education Expenditure In South Asia: Opportunities And Challenges

2026
Get Reproducibility Package
Reference ID
RR_SAR_2026_541
DOI
https://doi.org/10.60572/zzsp-1229
Author(s)
Monica Yanez-Pagans, Mariana Marchionni, Emmanuel Vazquez, Namrata Raman Tognatta
Collections
World Bank Policy Research Working Papers
Metadata
JSON
Created on
Jan 16, 2026
Last modified
Jan 16, 2026
  • Overview
  • Reproducibility Package
  • Description
  • Scope and coverage
  • Disclaimer
  • Access and rights
  • Contacts
  • Information on metadata
  • Citation

    • Overview

    Abstract

    The decline in the school-age population due to demographic changes presents an opportunity to redirect resources within the education sector to improve access and quality. However, experiences from other countries that went through similar demographic transitions show that a shrinking student population does not automatically translate into more efficient spending due to structural and political challenges. Consequently, realizing any potential fiscal space depends critically on how education systems adapt in practice to demographic changes. In this paper, we project public education expenditure as a percentage of GDP from 2020 to 2050 across eight South Asian countries, considering demographic shifts and different scenarios related to education system coverage, efficiency, and economic growth. We find that demographic changes could allow for reinvesting educational resources for basic education equivalent to 0.6 percentage points of GDP on average by 2050 (compared to 2020), even after achieving universal basic education. While the reinvestment potential for pre-primary and tertiary education is smaller, it remains significant at an estimated 0.14 percentage points of GDP on average.

    Reproducibility Package

    Scripts
    Get Reproducibility Package
    File name
    RR_WLD_2026_541
    Zip package
    RR_WLD_2026_541.zip
    Title
    Reproducibility package for Demographic Transition And Education Expenditure In South Asia: Opportunities And Challenges
    Date
    2026-01
    Dependencies
    Stata dependencies are listed in the ado folder.
    Instructions
    See README in reproducibility package.
    Notes
    Computational reproducibility verified by Development Impact (DECDI) Analytics team, World Bank.
    Source code repository
    Repository name URI
    Reproducible Research Repository (World Bank) https://reproducibility.worldbank.org
    Software
    Name
    Stata
    Version
    18.0 MP

    Reproducibility

    Technology environment

    Paper exhibits were reproduced on a computer with the following specifications:
    • OS: Windows 11 Enterprise
    • Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1145G7 CPU @ 2.60GHz
    • Memory available: 15.7 GB
    Technology requirements

    Runtime: 10 minutes
    Reproduction instructions

    To reproduce the findings, a new user needs to do the following:

    1. Open the 0_master do file.
    2. Change the path on line 27.
    3. Run the code, and the results will be stored in the Outputs folder.

    Data

    Datasets
    Name
    New World Bank country classifications by income level: 2022-2023
    Note
    Access date: April 28, 2023 Files location: Data/wb/CLASS_2022_2023.xlsx
    Access policy
    Data is publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.
    License
    Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
    License URL
    https://www.worldbank.org/en/about/legal/terms-of-use-for-datasets
    Data URL
    https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/new-world-bank-country-classifications-income-level-2022-2023
    Citation
    World Bank. (2023). "New World Bank country classifications by income level: 2022-2023 [dataset]". Available at https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/new-world-bank-country-classifications-income-level-2022-2023
    Name
    World Population Prospects 2022
    Note
    Access date: May 22, 2023. Files location: Data/wpp/WPP2022_POP_F01_1_POPULATION_SINGLE_AGE_BOTH_SEXES.xlsx; /wpp/school age population.xlsx; /wpp/population_projections.xlsx; /wpp/WPP_for_elasticities.xlsx Notes: The files "school age population.xlsx", "population_projections.xlsx", and "WPP_for_elasticities.xlsx" are derived from WPP 2022 and were prepared by the authors for the empirical analysis. "school age population.xlsx" appends estimates (2020–2021) and projections (2023–2100) and adds constructed columns reporting school-age population shares by education level. "population_projections.xlsx" is a cleaned extract of the "School age population" worksheet for import into Stata. "WPP_for_elasticities.xlsx" is a reformatted WPP-based file prepared for elasticity estimation.
    Access policy
    Data is publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.
    License
    Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO
    License URL
    http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/
    Data URL
    https://population.un.org/wpp/
    Citation
    United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. (2022). "World Population Prospects 2022 [dataset]". Available at https://population.un.org/wpp/
    Name
    UNESCO Institute for Statistics Data Browser
    Note
    Access dates: - November 20, 2019 (EDULIT) - November 7, 2019 (DEMO) - July 13, 2023 (status_quo) Files location: Data/uis/EDULIT_DS_20112019122436006.csv; Data/uis/DEMO_DS_07112019102518924.csv; Data /uis/status_quo.xlsx. Notes: The two CSV files contain country-year series (1970–2019) downloaded from UIS.Stat for education indicators (EDULIT) and macroeconomic/price conversion indicators (DEMO) used in the empirical analysis. The file "status_quo.xlsx" is a manually created dataset combining UIS-derived indicators (expenditure shares, enrollment, and private/public shares) with demographic inputs (school-age population shares) derived from WPP 2022 (see /wpp files) to ensure exact decompositions described in the README and paper (see Table A2 for specific years used).
    Access policy
    Data is publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.
    License
    Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license
    License URL
    https://databrowser.uis.unesco.org/terms-and-conditions
    Data URL
    https://databrowser.uis.unesco.org/
    Citation
    UNESCO Institute for Statistics. (2019–2023). "UNESCO Institute for Statistics Data Browser (UIS.Stat) [dataset]". Available at https://databrowser.uis.unesco.org/
    Name
    World Development Indicators (WDI)
    Note
    Access date: April 18, 2023 Files location: (data incorporated in) /uis/status_quo.xlsx Variables used: Gross enrollment rates (m) for pre-primary and tertiary education were obtained from WDI and integrated into the cleaned "status_quo.xlsx" dataset, as described in the README.
    Access policy
    Publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.
    License
    Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
    License URL
    https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
    Data URL
    https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development-indicators
    Citation
    World Bank. (2023). "World Development Indicators [dataset]". Available at https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development-indicators
    Data statement

    All data sources are publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.

    Description

    Output
    Type
    Working Paper
    Title
    Demographic Transition And Education Expenditure In South Asia: Opportunities And Challenges
    Description
    Policy Research Working Papers (PRWP)
    Authors
    Author Affiliation Email
    Monica Yanez-Pagans World Bank myanezpagans@worldbank.org
    Mariana Marchionni CEDLAS marchionni.mariana@gmail.com
    Emmanuel Vazquez CEDLAS evazquez@cedlas.org
    Namrata Raman Tognatta World Bank ntognatta@worldbank.org
    Date of production

    2026-01-13

    Scope and coverage

    Geographic locations
    Location Code
    World WLD
    Keywords
    Education Demographic Transition Demographic Dividend South Asia Education Resources
    Topics
    ID Topic Parent topic ID Vocabulary Vocabulary URI
    I22 Educational Finance • Financial Aid I2 Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)
    I25 Education and Economic Development I2 Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)
    J11 Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts J1 Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)

    Disclaimer

    Disclaimer

    The materials in the reproducibility packages are distributed as they were prepared by the staff of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this event do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank, the Executive Directors of the World Bank, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the materials included in the reproducibility package.

    Access and rights

    License
    Name URI
    Modified BSD3 https://opensource.org/license/bsd-3-clause/

    Contacts

    Contacts
    Name Affiliation Email
    Monica Yanez-Pagans World Bank myanezpagans@worldbank.org
    Reproducibility WBG World Bank reproducibility@worldbank.org

    Information on metadata

    Producers
    Name Abbreviation Affiliation Role
    Reproducibility WBG DECDI World Bank - Development Impact Department Verification and preparation of metadata
    Date of Production

    2026-01-13
    Document version

    1

    Citation

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