Information reduces corruption and improves enrolment (but not schooling): a replication study of a newspaper campaign in Uganda

In the mid-1990s, Ugandan primary schools received only one-fifth of intended government capitation grants. A seminal study shows that a grassroots newspaper campaign substantially reduced grant capture and improved educational outcomes. We replicate these results, confirming that the campaign reduced corruption and increased enrolment. The latter outcome is only robust with an improved enrolment measure introduced in later work by the authors of the original study. We cannot, however, support the authors’ conclusion that lower capture enhanced learning. Finally, we show that the newspaper campaign allowed for a fairer allocation of teachers across schools, a result absent in the original papers.