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"Every Catholic Child in a Catholic School": Historical Resistance to State Schooling, Contemporary Private Competition, and Student Achievement across Countries

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Author Info
West, Martin R. () (Brown University)
Woessmann, Ludger () (Ifo Institute for Economic Research)

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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.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 3818.

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Length: 37 pages
Date of creation: Nov 2008
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Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3818

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Related research
Keywords: private school competition; student achievement; Catholic schools;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
L33 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Boundaries of Public and Private Enterprise; Privatization; Contracting Out
N30 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Income, and Wealth - - - General, International, or Comparative
Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion

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References listed on IDEAS
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  1. Evans, William N & Schwab, Robert M, 1995. "Finishing High School and Starting College: Do Catholic Schools Make a Difference?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 110(4), pages 941-74, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Ludger Woesmann, 2003. "Schooling Resources, Educational Institutions and Student Performance: the International Evidence," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 65(2), pages 117-170, 05. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Robert J. Barro & Rachel M. Mccleary, 2005. "Which Countries Have State Religions?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 120(4), pages 1331-1370, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Joseph G. Altonji & Todd E. Elder & Christopher R. Taber, 2005. "An Evaluation of Instrumental Variable Strategies for Estimating the Effects of Catholic Schooling," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(4). [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  6. Maristella Botticini & Zvi Eckstein, 2007. "From Farmers to Merchants, Conversions and Diaspora: Human Capital and Jewish History," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 5(5), pages 885-926, 09. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Stock, James H & Wright, Jonathan H & Yogo, Motohiro, 2002. "A Survey of Weak Instruments and Weak Identification in Generalized Method of Moments," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(4), pages 518-29, October.
  8. Helen F. Ladd, 2002. "School Vouchers: A Critical View," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 3-24, Fall. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Vandenberghe, V. & Robin, S., 2004. "Evaluating the effectiveness of private education across countries: a comparison of methods," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 487-506, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Francisco A. Gallego, 2004. "School Choice, Incentives, and Academic Outcomes: Evidence from Chile," Econometric Society 2004 Latin American Meetings 39, Econometric Society. [Downloadable!]
  11. Jepsen, Christopher, 2002. "The role of aggregation in estimating the effects of private school competition on student achievement," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 477-500, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Toma, Eugenia Froedge, 1996. "Public Funding and Private Schooling across Countries," Journal of Law & Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(1), pages 121-48, April.
  13. Christopher Jepsen, 2003. "The Effectiveness of Catholic Primary Schooling," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 38(4). [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Dee, Thomas S., 1998. "Competition and the quality of public schools," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 419-427, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Bishop, John, 2006. "Drinking from the Fountain of Knowledge: Student Incentive to Study and Learn - Externalities, Information Problems and Peer Pressure," Handbook of the Economics of Education, Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Caroline Minter Hoxby, 1994. "Do Private Schools Provide Competition for Public Schools?," NBER Working Papers 4978, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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