Negotiating a Better Future

Nava  Ashraf; Natalie  Bau; Corinne  Low; Kathleen  McGinn

Article | Quarterly Journal of Economics | Forthcoming

Negotiating a Better Future: How Interpersonal Skills Facilitate Inter-Generational Investment

by Nava Ashraf, Natalie Bau, Corinne Low and Kathleen McGinn

Abstract

Using a randomized control trial, we examine whether offering adolescent girls nonmaterial resources—specifically, negotiation skills—can improve educational outcomes in a low-income country. In so doing, we provide the first evidence on the effects of an intervention that increased noncognitive, interpersonal skills during adolescence. Long-run administrative data shows that negotiation training significantly improved educational outcomes over the next three years. The training had greater effects than two alternative treatments (offering girls a safe physical space with female mentors and offering girls information about the returns to education), suggesting that negotiation skills themselves drive the effect. Further evidence from a lab-in-the-field experiment, which simulates parents’ educational investment decisions, and a midline survey suggests that negotiation skills improved girls’ outcomes by moving households’ human capital investments closer to the efficient frontier. This is consistent with an incomplete contracting model, where negotiation allows daughters to strategically cooperate with parents.

Keywords: Negotiation; Competency and Skills; Training; Age; Gender; Education; Investment; Outcome or Result; Developing Countries and Economies;

Format: Print

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Citation:

Ashraf, Nava, Natalie Bau, Corinne Low, and Kathleen McGinn. "Negotiating a Better Future: How Interpersonal Skills Facilitate Inter-Generational Investment." Quarterly Journal of Economics (forthcoming). (Pre-published online January 9, 2020.)

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Negotiating a Better Future: How Interpersonal Skills Facilitate Inter-Generational Investment

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