Reproducibility package for The Impact Of School Grants On Disadvantaged Students: Experimental Evidence From Romania
Overview
In this report, we analyze the impact of the ROSE project, a program designed to improve student retention, graduation rates and pass rates on a national end-of-high-school exam for low-achievement high schools in Romania. The program was implemented in three waves, September 2017, September 2018, and September 2020, respectively, with eligible high schools randomly assigned to each. We exploit this staggered implementation of ROSE to causally measure its impacts on students. Our estimates indicate that the ROSE program had no significant impact on (i) student preferences for attending a ROSE high school, ii) student retention rates, (iii) high school graduation rates, (iv) enrollment in the post-high school baccalaureate (bac) exam, (v) bac pass rates, or (vi) bac scores. While there is a small increase in girls’ bac passing rates (3 pp), we find little heterogeneity in these null effects by grant size, urban-rural status, student achievement levels, town income levels, and type of curriculum taught.
Reproducibility Package
| Repository name | URI |
|---|---|
| Reproducible Research Repository (World Bank) | https://reproducibility.worldbank.org |
Reproducibility
Paper exhibits were reproduced on a computer with the following specifications:
• OS: Windows 11 Enterprise
• Processor: INTEL(R) XEON(R) PLATINUM 8562Y+ 2.80 GHz (4 processors)
• Memory available: 32.0 GB
Runtime: 30 minutes
To reproduce the findings in this paper, a replicator must:
- Secure Access to Data: Access the datasets not included in the package. See subsection Datasets for more details.
- Download and Place Data: Once the data is accessed, users should place it in the appropriate folder.
- Run the Package: After placing the data in the folder, open the R project "reproducibility package.Rproj" and update the working directory in line 5 and run the script "main.R".
Because access to the restricted data will not be possible for most users, this package includes all the code and outputs used in the analysis for transparency purposes. These files can be used to validate the results presented in the paper.
Data
Some data is restricted and has not been included in the reproducibility package. For more details, refer to the README file.
Description
| Author | Affiliation | |
|---|---|---|
| Rafael de Hoyos | Inter-American Development Bank (formerly World Bank) | rafaelde@iadb.org |
| Andrei Munteanu | Université du Québec à Montréal | munteanu.andrei@uqam.ca |
| Cristian Pop-Eleches | Columbia University | cp2124@columbia.edu |
2026-04-02
Scope and coverage
| Location | Code |
|---|---|
| Romania | ROU |
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
| Name | URI |
|---|---|
| Modified BSD3 | https://opensource.org/license/bsd-3-clause/ |
Contacts
| Name | Affiliation | |
|---|---|---|
| Rafael de Hoyos | Inter-American Development Bank | rafaelde@iadb.org |
| Reproducibility WBG | World Bank | reproducibility@worldbank.org |
Information on metadata
| Name | Abbreviation | Affiliation | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reproducibility WBG | DECDI | World Bank - Development Impact Department | Verification and preparation of metadata |
2026-04-02
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