Lights, Camera, School: Information Provision through Television during COVID-19 Times
Abstract
This paper examines the effects of encouragement phone calls designed to increase viewership of the educational telenovela "Decidiendo para un Futuro Mejor" (DFM) broadcast on Peruvian national television during the COVID-19 pandemic. The program aimed to highlight the benefits of education and share information on financial aid and expected returns to schooling. The authors conducted a randomized controlled trial involving over 80,000 families with high school students in urban Peru. Results show that the encouragement calls significantly reduced school dropout rates by about 0.6 percentage points, with larger effects in schools with higher poverty and pre-pandemic dropout rates. The impact appears to stem primarily from the encouragement to watch DFM, not the calls themselves. Despite low overall TV ratings, the intervention was cost-effective and suggests that light-touch remote interventions can mitigate adverse educational outcomes during crises.
- Coauthors: Francisco A. Gallego, Oswaldo Molina
- Published: Journal of Development Economics (March 2025)
- Date: 2025
