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American Economic Review Vol. 90 No. 5 2000

Does Competition Among Public Schools Benefit Students and Taxpayers?

Caroline Hoxby

Department of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138.

Abstract

Tiebout choice among districts is the most powerful market force in American public education. Naive estimates of its effects are biased by endogenous district formation. I derive instruments from the natural boundaries in a metropolitan area. My results suggest that metropolitan areas with greater Tiebout choice have more productive public schools and less private schooling. Little of the effect of Tiebout choice works through its effect on household sorting. This finding may be explained by another finding: students are equally segregated by school in metropolitan areas with greater and lesser degrees of Tiebout choice among districts.

DOI
10.1257/aer.90.5.1209
Volume
90
Issue
5
Pages
1209-1238
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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