American Economic Review Vol. 107 No. 6 2017

Report Cards: The Impact of Providing School and Child Test Scores on Educational Markets

Tahir Andrabi¹; Jishnu Das²; Asim Ijaz Khwaja³

¹ Pomona College, 425 N College Avenue, Claremont, CA 91711 (e-mail: ) · ² Development Research Group, World Bank, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433 (e-mail: ) · ³ Harvard Kennedy School, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (e-mail: )

Abstract

We study the impact of providing school report cards with test scores on subsequent test scores, prices, and enrollment in markets with multiple public and private providers. A randomly selected half of our sample villages (markets) received report cards. This increased test scores by 0.11 standard deviations, decreased private school fees by 17 percent, and increased primary enrollment by 4.5 percent. Heterogeneity in the treatment impact by initial school test scores is consistent with canonical models of asymmetric information. Information provision facilitates better comparisons across providers, and improves market efficiency and child welfare through higher test scores, higher enrollment, and lower fees.

DOI

10.1257/aer.20140774

Volume

107

Issue

6

Pages

1535-1563

Language

en

Sources

bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

Cite

APA 7 MLA 9 Chicago (author–date) Harvard Elsevier Harvard (JFE, JBF…) The Accounting Review Academy of Management American Marketing Association INFORMS (Management Science) Copy citation Copied ✓