Using data for all Wisconsin school districts over the 2003/04 through 2006/07 school years, we evaluate the state of Wisconsin's Open Enrollment (inter-district transfer) program to determine which school district characteristics influence parental transfer decisions. To our knowledge, this is the first study of school choice in a public school…

Critics of school choice argue that cream-skimming will worsen outcomes for those left behind in public schools. Since "high ability" families may have already sorted themselves out of the schools in question, this paper will examine whether existing within-school heterogeneity leaves any scope for cream-skimming to operate. It asks, "given the…

One major concern with public school open enrollment programs is the potential for parents' school selection errors to adversely affect their children's academic achievement. In this study of the Beijing middle school open enrollment program, we estimate the degree to which children's school outcomes were negatively affected by the poor choices…

Empirical studies estimating the effect of private school competition on student outcomes commonly use the share of Catholics in the local population as an instrument for private school competition. I show that this is not a valid instrument since it is endogenous to private school competition and suggest using instead the local share of Catholics…

The German schooling system selects children into different secondary school tracks already at a very early stage in life. School track choice heavily influences choices and opportunities later in life. It has often been observed that secondary schooling achievements display a strong correlation with parental income. We use sibling fixed effects…

Youth who share a school and neighborhood often show similar levels of academic achievement, but some studies find all or most of this correlation is due to sorting (not causation). We analyze the National Education Longitudinal Survey (NELS) in three ways to decompose sorting versus causality: We first control for much richer measures of family…

We analyse the role of educational choice on the degree of occupational segregation in Trinidad and Tobago during a period in which educational policies intent on equating gender opportunities in education were implemented. To this end we utilize waves of the Trinidad and Tobago labour force survey over the period 1991-2004. Our results show that…

Because entrepreneurial activity is a key source of economic growth, promoting youth entrepreneurship has become a priority for policymakers. School choice programs force administrators and teachers to be more entrepreneurial in their jobs by encouraging innovation and by creating competition and a more business-like environment in K-12 education.…

This study examines parents' demand for sending their children to a public school located outside their residential school district. Using a unique data set that contains information concerning both inter-district transfers and rejections of transfer applications, I am able to identify which school district characteristics attract the greatest…

This paper adopts the technique of [DiNardo, Fortin and Lemieux (1996). "Labour market institutions and the distribution of wages 1973-1992: A semiparametric approach." "Econometrica, 64"(5), 1001-1044.] to decompose differences in the distribution of PISA reading scores in Canada, and assesses the relative contribution of…

This paper presents a model of school choice with peer effects and scale economies within schools. Parents' perception of school quality depends on resources and on the characteristics of the student body. A network of local schools of uniform quality will be optimal, even though different households prefer different qualities. Whether schools of…

Beyond some contracted minimum, salaried workers' hours are largely chosen at the worker's discretion and should respond to the strength of contract incentives. Accordingly, we consider the response of teacher hours to accountability and school choice laws introduced in US public schools over the past two decades. Total weekly hours of full-time…

Uses High School and Beyond database samples to estimate both standard multinomial and nested multinomial logit modes of enrollment choice behavior. The empirical results indicate that the independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) property (considered a possible limitation) was not consistent with choice behavior in the data sample. Includes…

This article considers two issues regarding preschool education. First, it provides a brief set of arguments for government funding of universal, pre-school education. Second, it explores the applicability of a voucher plan using a regulated market approach for the funding of universal, pre-school education. Four criteria are used to assess the…

Charter schools represent one part of the larger movement toward parental choice in education, which is intended to improve school efficiency and innovation. We hypothesize that the number of charter schools entering in a local education market depends on how closely the distribution of education programs in public and private schools matches the…