\"Every catholic child in a catholic school\": Historical resistance to state schooling, contemporary private competition and student achievement across countries

Martin R. West and Ludger Wößmann
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Ludger Woessmann

Munich Reprints in Economics from University of Munich, Department of Economics

Abstract: Nineteenth-century Catholic doctrine strongly opposed state schooling. We show that countries with larger shares of Catholics in 1900 (but without a Catholic state religion) tend to have larger shares of privately operated schools even today. We use this historical pattern as a natural experiment to estimate the causal effect of contemporary private competition on student achievement in cross-country student-level analyses. Our results show that larger shares of privately operated schools lead to better student achievement in mathematics, science and reading, and to lower total education spending, even after controlling for current Catholic shares.

Date: 2010
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (89)

Published in Economic Journal 546 120(2010): pp. F229-F255

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Related works:
Journal Article: 'Every Catholic Child in a Catholic School': Historical Resistance to State Schooling, Contemporary Private Competition and Student Achievement across Countries (2010)
Working Paper: “Every Catholic Child in a Catholic School”: Historical Resistance to State Schooling, Contemporary Private Competition, and Student Achievement across Countries (2008)
Working Paper: "Every Catholic Child in a Catholic School": Historical Resistance to State Schooling, Contemporary Private Competition, and Student Achievement across Countries (2008)
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