IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ioe/doctra/256.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Peer Effects and Relative Performance of Voucher Schools in Chile

Author

Listed:
  • Claudio Sapelli

    (Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.)

  • Bernardita Vial

    (Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.)

Abstract

The assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of vouchers has been hindered by the lack of sufficient empirical evidence. The Chilean education voucher system was established at a national scale and has data for more than 15 years. The empirical literature developed to evaluate the voucher system in Chile faced methodological and/or data limitations up until late 1999, since there was no individual data available, and papers used the school as a unit of study. Additionally, the studies lacked good information on the socioeconomic characteristics of the students. The most recent literature uses individual data and introduces the correction for selection bias, but do not take into account that some public schools receive additional resources from the government. In the first section of this paper we control for the amount of per capita funds received by the public schools from the government, and find that when public and private voucher schools receive similar per capita subsidies, the effect of treatment on the treated (where treatment is attendance to a private voucher school) is large in magnitude and statistically significant. Some fear that this result may be the consequence of sorting and peer effect, and not of the effectiveness of private voucher schools. To analyze the importance of peer effects on the previous results, in the second section we estimate new treatment parameters controlling for peer group characteristics. If the positive treatment effect estimated earlier were exclusively the result of the sorting process and peer effect, this new treatment parameter should be zero. This hypothesis is rejected. Even when we condition on peer group characteristics, we find a treatment parameter that is positive, large in magnitude and statistically significant, when public and private voucher schools receive similar per capita subsidies. Hence, papers that have asserted that positive treatment effects are due to the peer effect and/ or sorting are proved wrong

Suggested Citation

  • Claudio Sapelli & Bernardita Vial, 2003. "Peer Effects and Relative Performance of Voucher Schools in Chile," Documentos de Trabajo 256, Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile..
    • Handle: RePEc:ioe:doctra:256
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.economia.uc.cl/docs/doctra/dt-256.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Caroline Minter Hoxby, 2003. "School Choice and School Productivity. Could School Choice Be a Tide that Lifts All Boats?," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of School Choice, pages 287-342, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Francisco Gallego, 2002. "Competencia y Resultados Educativos: Teoría y Evidencia para Chile," Latin American Journal of Economics-formerly Cuadernos de Economía, Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 39(118), pages 309-352.
    3. Caroline M. Hoxby, 2000. "Does Competition among Public Schools Benefit Students and Taxpayers?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1209-1238, December.
    4. Claudio Sapelli, 2003. "The Chilean Voucher System: Some New Results and Research Challenges," Latin American Journal of Economics-formerly Cuadernos de Economía, Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 40(121), pages 530-538.
    5. Claudio Sapelli & Bernardita Vial, 2002. "The Performance of Private and Public Schools in the Chilean Voucher System," Latin American Journal of Economics-formerly Cuadernos de Economía, Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 39(118), pages 423-454.
    6. Alejandra Mizala & Pilar Romaguera, 2000. "School Performance and Choice: The Chilean Experience," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 35(2), pages 392-417.
    7. James J. Heckman, 2001. "Micro Data, Heterogeneity, and the Evaluation of Public Policy: Nobel Lecture," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(4), pages 673-748, August.
    8. Andrea Tokman Ramos, 2002. "Is Private Education Better? Evidence from Chile," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 147, Central Bank of Chile.
    9. James J. Heckman & Justin L. Tobias & Edward Vytlacil, 2000. "Simple Estimators for Treatment Parameters in a Latent Variable Framework with an Application to Estimating the Returns to Schooling," NBER Working Papers 7950, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Epple, Dennis & Romano, Richard E, 1998. "Competition between Private and Public Schools, Vouchers, and Peer-Group Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(1), pages 33-62, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Francisco A. Gallego, 2004. "School Choice, Incentives, and Academic Outcomes: Evidence from Chile," Econometric Society 2004 Latin American Meetings 39, Econometric Society.
    2. Idrovo Aguirre, Byron, 2007. "¿Son las escuelas particulares subvencionadas mejores que las municipales? Estimación de la ecuación de logro escolar para Chile [Are the subsidized particular schools better than the public school," MPRA Paper 10665, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Gabriel Heller Sahlgren, 2014. "Handing Over the School Keys: The Impact of Privatisation on Education Quality," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(2), pages 196-210, June.
    4. Harry Anthony Patrinos & Felipe Barrera-Osorio & Juliana Guaqueta, 2009. "The Role and Impact of Public-Private Partnerships in Education," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2612.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Claudio Sapelli & Bernardita Vial, 2005. "Private vs Public Voucher Schools in Chile: New Evidence on Efficiency and Peer Effects," Documentos de Trabajo 289, Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile..
    2. Bernardo Lara & Alejandra Mizala & Andrea Repetto, 2009. "The Effectiveness of Private Voucher Education: Evidence from Structural School Switches," Documentos de Trabajo 263, Centro de Economía Aplicada, Universidad de Chile.
    3. Leonardo Letelier S & Hector Ormeño C, 2018. "Education and fiscal decentralization. The case of municipal education in Chile," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 36(8), pages 1499-1521, December.
    4. Francisco A. Gallego, 2004. "School Choice, Incentives, and Academic Outcomes: Evidence from Chile," Econometric Society 2004 Latin American Meetings 39, Econometric Society.
    5. Idrovo Aguirre, Byron, 2007. "¿Son las escuelas particulares subvencionadas mejores que las municipales? Estimación de la ecuación de logro escolar para Chile [Are the subsidized particular schools better than the public school," MPRA Paper 10665, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Stephen Gibbons & Stephen Machin & Olmo Silva, 2008. "Choice, Competition, and Pupil Achievement," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(4), pages 912-947, June.
    7. Fernandes, Reynaldo & Gallego, Francisco A., 2008. "Comments," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 123125, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Carolina Ostoic & Alejandra Mizala & Pilar Romaguera, 2004. "Equity and Achievement in the Chilean School Choice Experience," Econometric Society 2004 Latin American Meetings 232, Econometric Society.
    9. Gibbons, Stephen & Silva, Olmo, 2008. "Urban density and pupil attainment," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 631-650, March.
    10. Drago, José Luis & Paredes, Ricardo D., 2011. "The quality gap in Chile's education system," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), August.
    11. Gallego Francisco, 2013. "When Does Inter-School Competition Matter? Evidence from the Chilean “Voucher” System," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 13(2), pages 525-562, August.
    12. Caterina Calsamiglia & Francisco Martínez-Mora & Antonio Miralles, 2021. "School Choice Design, Risk Aversion and Cardinal Segregation," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(635), pages 1081-1104.
    13. Ludger Woessmann, 2006. "Public-Private Partnership and Schooling Outcomes across Countries," CESifo Working Paper Series 1662, CESifo.
    14. Millimet, Daniel L. & Rangaprasad, Vasudha, 2007. "Strategic competition amongst public schools," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 199-219, March.
    15. Edmark, Karin & Frölich, Markus & Wondratschek, Verena, 2014. "Sweden's school choice reform and equality of opportunity," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 129-142.
    16. Harry Anthony Patrinos & Felipe Barrera-Osorio & Juliana Guaqueta, 2009. "The Role and Impact of Public-Private Partnerships in Education," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2612.
    17. Burgess, Simon & Briggs, Adam, 2010. "School assignment, school choice and social mobility," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 639-649, August.
    18. Dante Contreras & Paulina Sepúlveda & Sebastián Bustos, 2010. "When Schools Are the Ones that Choose: The Effects of Screening in Chile," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 91(s1), pages 1349-1368.
    19. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Miguel Urquiola, 2002. "When Schools Compete, How Do They Compete? An Assessment of Chile's Nationwide School Voucher Program," Working Papers 123, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    20. Benjamin Feigenberg, 2021. "Priced Out: Aggregate Income Shocks And School Pricing In The Chilean Voucher Market," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(2), pages 696-721, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ioe:doctra:256. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jaime Casassus (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iepuccl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.