Working Paper

Policy for Closing Education Gaps across Gender and Culture: Tuition-Free Education or School Construction?

• Presentations: RES PhD Conference; Stockholm U; PSE-CEPR Policy Forum; UCL-Stone Research Day; U Osaka; Kobe U; U Luxembourg, Workshop of Gender and Economics; U Osaka ISER
  
• Awards: Moriguchi Prize Runner-up, U Osaka ISER, Japan, 2025 Link; Kanematsu Prize, Kobe U, Japan, 2025 Link
• Citation: Fujisaki, K. (2025) “Policy for Closing Education Gaps across Gender and Culture: Tuition-Free Education or School Construction?”, RIEB Discussion Paper Series No.2025-16 DP

Abstract

Education policies commonly fall into two categories: cost/demand-side and supply-side interventions. This paper examines which approach more effectively serves underrepresented groups, taking local culture into account. Using a regression discontinuity design, it shows that Indonesia’s Free Primary Education (FPE) program, which abolished primary school tuition fees in 1977–1978, improved previously low female educational attainment. These educational gains also reduced child marriage and raised future earnings. Unlike the concurrent school construction program, FPE was equally effective across communities, irrespective of whether bride price is practiced. Absent institutions raising demand for girls' schooling, tuition removal can be more effective in promoting female education than supply-side interventions, thereby reducing gender gaps across cultural contexts.

Work in Progress

Corporate Social Responsibility, Firm Performance, and Environment: Evidence from Mandatory CSR in Indonesia

• Presentations: U Osaka; UCL; IDE-JETRO, JSIE Next Generation Workshop; Hitotsubashi U, Young JADE Conference
• Grant: Approx. 5,000 GBP, Mishima Kaiun Memorial Foundation, Japan, 2024-25

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the integration of social, environmental, and ethical values into business practices. This paper studies its effects on firms’ profits, production, and environmental outcomes in Indonesia. To address endogeneity in CSR adoption, I exploit the country’s legal requirement that limited-liability firms in natural-resource–related industries implement CSR activities. A triple-difference design shows that the mandate improved environmental performance by reducing the use of polluting fuels. Effects are larger for firms with stronger community-based relational incentives, particularly those relying on locally sourced private capital. The fuel shift involved a reallocation of expenditures but did not affect profits, output, total revenue, or total expenses. Village–firm matched data corroborate a decline in reported pollution incidents around obligated firms. Even without strong enforcement, legal CSR requirements can complement traditional environmental regulation when firms are embedded in local networks that provide additional CSR incentives.

Employer Diversity Signals and Match Quality in Job Search

• Co-authors: Yumi Ishikawa, Miki Kohara, Yanni Shen

Minimum Wage Implementation and Labour Market Dynamics: Regional versus Occupational Targeting

• Grant: Approx. 1,500 GBP, KIER Foundation, Kyoto University, Japan, 2025-26

First Step Toward Eradicating Child Labor: Hazardous-Sector Child-Labor Ban in Cambodia

• Presentations: Hitotsubashi U
• Grant: Approx. 3,000 GBP, Labor Research Center, Japan, 2025-26

Gendered Trade-off Between Schooling and Household Labor

• Presentations: AASLE Bangkok; UCL, Stone Centre Conference on Education and Inequality

Does Transparency Reduce Workplace Gender Inequality? Evidence from Japanese Firms

• Co-author: Miki Kohara