The impact of fundamentalist terrorism on school enrolment: evidence from north-western Pakistan, 2004-2016

This paper investigates the Pakistani Taliban's terror campaign against girls' education in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. We measure individual exposure to terror using the time and location of attacks against schools. The evidence suggests that the impact of the campaign was limited. We find limited evidence of reduced enrolment in response to terror, except during a 21-month period when the Taliban controlled the district of Swat. Where we do find evidence of reduced enrolment, it's generally small and diminishes over time. We also find no evidence of increased enrolment in religious schools, which were not targeted by the Taliban.