{"type":"script","doc_desc":{"producers":[{"name":"Reproducibility WBG","abbr":"DECDI","affiliation":"World Bank - Development Impact Department","role":"Verification and preparation of metadata"}],"prod_date":"2026-01-13","version":"1"},"project_desc":{"authoring_entity":[{"name":"Monica Yanez-Pagans","affiliation":"World Bank","email":"myanezpagans@worldbank.org"},{"name":"Mariana Marchionni","affiliation":"CEDLAS","email":"marchionni.mariana@gmail.com"},{"name":"Emmanuel Vazquez","affiliation":"CEDLAS","email":"evazquez@cedlas.org"},{"name":"Namrata Raman Tognatta","affiliation":"World Bank","email":"ntognatta@worldbank.org"}],"title_statement":{"title":"Reproducibility package for Demographic Transition And Education Expenditure In South Asia: \nOpportunities And Challenges","idno":"RR_SAR_2026_541"},"software":[{"name":"Stata","version":"18.0 MP"}],"scripts":[{"title":"Reproducibility package for Demographic Transition And Education Expenditure In South Asia: \nOpportunities And Challenges","date":"2026-01","notes":"Computational reproducibility verified by Development Impact (DECDI) Analytics team, World Bank.","instructions":"See README in reproducibility package.","file_name":"RR_WLD_2026_541","zip_package":"RR_WLD_2026_541.zip","dependencies":"Stata dependencies are listed in the ado folder."}],"repository_uri":[{"name":"Reproducible Research Repository (World Bank)","uri":"https:\/\/reproducibility.worldbank.org"}],"production_date":"2026-01-13","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. ","geographic_units":[{"name":"World","code":"WLD"}],"keywords":[{"name":"Education"},{"name":"Demographic Transition"},{"name":"Demographic Dividend"},{"name":"South Asia"},{"name":"Education Resources"}],"topics":[{"id":"I22","uri":"https:\/\/www.aeaweb.org\/econlit\/jelCodes.php?view=jel","vocabulary":"Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)","name":"Educational Finance \u2022 Financial Aid","parent_id":"I2"},{"id":" I25","uri":"https:\/\/www.aeaweb.org\/econlit\/jelCodes.php?view=jel","vocabulary":"Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)","name":"Education and Economic Development","parent_id":"I2"},{"id":" J11","uri":"https:\/\/www.aeaweb.org\/econlit\/jelCodes.php?view=jel","vocabulary":"Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)","name":"Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts","parent_id":"J1"}],"output":[{"type":"Working Paper","description":"Policy Research Working Papers (PRWP)","title":"Demographic Transition And Education Expenditure In South Asia: \nOpportunities And Challenges"}],"language":[{"name":"English","code":"EN"}],"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.","license":[{"name":"Modified BSD3","uri":"https:\/\/opensource.org\/license\/bsd-3-clause\/"}],"contacts":[{"name":"Monica Yanez-Pagans","affiliation":"World Bank","email":"myanezpagans@worldbank.org"},{"name":"Reproducibility WBG","affiliation":"World Bank","email":"reproducibility@worldbank.org"}],"datasets":[{"uri":"https:\/\/blogs.worldbank.org\/en\/opendata\/new-world-bank-country-classifications-income-level-2022-2023","name":"New World Bank country classifications by income level: 2022-2023","note":"Access date: April 28, 2023\nFiles location: Data\/wb\/CLASS_2022_2023.xlsx","access_type":"Data is publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.","license":"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International","license_uri":"https:\/\/www.worldbank.org\/en\/about\/legal\/terms-of-use-for-datasets","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"},{"uri":"https:\/\/population.un.org\/wpp\/","name":"World Population Prospects 2022","note":"Access date: May 22, 2023.\nFiles 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\nNotes: 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\u20132021) and projections (2023\u20132100) 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_type":"Data is publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.","license":"Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO","license_uri":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/3.0\/igo\/","citation":"United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. (2022). \"World Population Prospects 2022 [dataset]\". Available at https:\/\/population.un.org\/wpp\/"},{"uri":"https:\/\/databrowser.uis.unesco.org\/","name":"UNESCO Institute for Statistics Data Browser","note":"Access dates:\n- November 20, 2019 (EDULIT)\n- November 7, 2019 (DEMO)\n- July 13, 2023 (status_quo)\nFiles location: Data\/uis\/EDULIT_DS_20112019122436006.csv; Data\/uis\/DEMO_DS_07112019102518924.csv; Data \/uis\/status_quo.xlsx.\nNotes: The two CSV files contain country-year series (1970\u20132019) 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_type":"Data is publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.","license":"Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license","license_uri":"https:\/\/databrowser.uis.unesco.org\/terms-and-conditions","citation":"UNESCO Institute for Statistics. (2019\u20132023). \"UNESCO Institute for Statistics Data Browser (UIS.Stat) [dataset]\". Available at https:\/\/databrowser.uis.unesco.org\/"},{"uri":"https:\/\/databank.worldbank.org\/source\/world-development-indicators","name":"World Development Indicators (WDI)","note":"Access date: April 18, 2023\nFiles location: (data incorporated in) \/uis\/status_quo.xlsx\nVariables 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_type":"Publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.","license":"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International","license_uri":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/","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.","reproduction_instructions":"To reproduce the findings, a new user needs to do the following:\n1. Open the `0_master` do file.  \n2. Change the path on line 27.  \n3. Run the code, and the results will be stored in the `Outputs` folder.\n","technology_requirements":"Runtime: 10 minutes","technology_environment":"Paper exhibits were reproduced on a computer with the following specifications:\n\u2022 OS: Windows 11 Enterprise\n\u2022 Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1145G7 CPU @ 2.60GHz\n\u2022 Memory available: 15.7 GB"},"tags":[{"tag":"DOI"},{"tag":"Open Code"},{"tag":"Open Data"}],"schematype":"script"}