This study investigates the long-term effects of school consolidation on human capital formation. We explore the implementation of a large-scale primary school consolidation programme in rural China aimed at improving the quality and efficiency of education. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, we find that exposure to the programme significantly increases the number of years of schooling completed by rural children. The effect changes with exposure duration to the RPSC programme and is stronger for children from areas with low economic development, areas with low educational inputs, an...