Nonpublic Competition and Public School Performance: Evidence from West Virginia

Richard Cebula (), Joshua Hall and Maria Tackett
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Maria Tackett: West Virginia University, Department of Economics

No 15-29, Working Papers from Department of Economics, West Virginia University

Abstract: In this study, we investigate whether nonpublic school enrollment affects the performance of public school districts. If homeschooling and private schools act as competition, public school districts test scores should be positively associated with nonpublic enrollment. Using data on West Virginia county school districts, and controlling for endogeneity with an instrumental variables approach, we find that a one standard deviation increase in relative nonpublic enrollment in a county is associated with statistically significant increases in public school district test scores. Our findings thus confirm that nonpublic enrollment and the competition it provides act to improve, rather than impede, public school performance.

Keywords: competition; markets; education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H52 I28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 21 pages
Date: 2015-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-ure
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Journal Article: Non-public competition and public school performance: evidence from West Virginia (2017)
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