Working Paper: NBER ID: w16056
Authors: David N. Figlio; Cassandra MD Hart
Abstract: We study the effects of private school competition on public school students' test scores in the wake of Florida's Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship program, now known as the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program, which offered scholarships to eligible low-income students to attend private schools. Specifically, we examine whether students in schools that were exposed to a more competitive private school landscape saw greater improvements in their test scores after the introduction of the scholarship program, than did students in schools that faced less competition. The degree of competition is characterized by several geocoded variables that capture students' ease of access to private schools, and the variety of nearby private school options open to students. We find that greater degrees of competition are associated with greater improvements in students' test scores following the introduction of the program; these findings are robust to the different variables we use to define competition. These findings are not an artifact of pre-policy trends; the degree of competition from nearby private schools matters only after the announcement of the new program, which makes nearby private competitors more affordable for eligible students. We also test for several moderating factors, and find that schools that we would expect to be most sensitive to competitive pressure see larger improvements in their test scores as a result of increased competition.
Keywords: school vouchers; competition; public school performance; Florida Tax Credit Scholarship
JEL Codes: I21; I22
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Private school competition (L39) | Public school test scores (I21) |
| Proximity to private schools (I23) | Public school test scores (I21) |
| Variety of nearby private options (R19) | Public school test scores (I21) |
| Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program (I22) | Private school competition (L39) |
| Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program (I22) | Public school test scores (I21) |