Ranking the Schools: How Quality Information Affects School Choice in the Netherlands

Pierre Koning and Karen van der Wiel

No 4984, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper analyzes whether information on high school quality published by a national newspaper affects school choice in the Netherlands. For this purpose, we use both school level and individual student level data. First, we study the causal effect of quality scores on the influx of new high school students using a longitudinal school dataset. We find that negative (positive) school quality scores decrease (increase) the number of students choosing a school after the year of publication. The positive effects are particularly large for the academic school track. An academic school track receiving the most positive score sees its inflow of students rise by 15 to 20 students. Second, we study individual school choice behaviour to address the relative importance of the quality scores, as well as potential differences in the quality response between socio-economic groups. Although the probability of attending a school is affected by its quality score, it is mainly driven by the travelling distance. Students are only willing to travel about 200 meters more in order to attend a well-performing rather than an average school. In contrast to equity concerns that are often raised, we cannot find differences in information responses between socio-economic groups.

Keywords: school quality; school choice; information; media (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 D83 I20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2010-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-eur, nep-lab and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published - revised version published in: Journal of the European Economic Association, 2013, 11 (2), 466–493

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Working Paper: Ranking the schools: How quality information affects school choice in the Netherlands (2010)
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