When one door closes: the impact of the hagwon curfew on the consumption of private tutoring in the Republic of Korea

Hoon Choi () and Álvaro Choi ()
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Álvaro Choi: Faculty of Economics, University of Barcelona

No 201526, IREA Working Papers from University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics

Abstract: The Korean government has struggled against the proliferation of private tutoring for more than four decades. In 2006, state education authorities imposed a restriction on operating hours of hagwon (private tutoring academies or cram schools) in an attempt at reducing the economic and time resources spent on private tutoring. Since then, some provincial authorities have modified the curfew on hagwon. We take advantage of these policy shifts to identify average treatment effects taking a difference-in-differences approach. Our findings suggest that enforcing the curfew did not generate a significant reduction in the hours and resources spent on private tutoring, our results being heterogeneous by school level and socioeconomic status. Demand for private tutoring seems to be especially inelastic for high school students, who increased their consumption of alternative forms of private tutoring. As the consumption of private tutoring is positively correlated with academic performance and socioeconomic status, the curfew may have a negative effect on the equality of educational opportunities.

Keywords: Private tutoring; Demand for schooling; Expenditures; Difference in differences; Korea. JEL classification: I21; I22; I24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2015-11, Revised 2015-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Working Paper: When one door closes: the impact of the hagwon curfew on the consumption of private tutoring in the Republic of Korea (2015)
Working Paper: When one door closes: the impact of the hagwon curfew on the consumption of private tutoring in the Republic of Korea (2015)
Working Paper: When one door closes: the impact of the hagwon curfew on the consumption of private tutoring in the Republic of Korea (2015)
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