IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecanpo/v91y2026icp1072-1087.html

School-to-school collaboration and public service delivery: Evidence from parental satisfaction in urban China

Author

Listed:
  • Jiang, Jinqiu
  • Chan, Philip Wing Keung
  • Brooks, Robert

Abstract

This study examines the long-term impact of a local government-led school-to-school collaboration (SSC) policy on the perceived quality of public education services in Beijing, China. Under this reform, low-performing schools were formally integrated into federations led by geographically proximate, high-performing schools. Drawing on administrative survey data from parents between 2010 and 2021 and employing a staggered difference-in-differences design, we find that SSC significantly improved parental satisfaction in both partner and lead schools. The effects were more pronounced among socioeconomically advantaged families and when the lead school had a stronger reputation. Mechanism analyses suggest that improvements in academic performance, family-school engagement, and perceived institutional value contributed to these outcomes. These findings highlight the potential of structured inter-school collaboration as a governance tool to enhance service responsiveness and reduce perceived inequities in urban education systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Jiang, Jinqiu & Chan, Philip Wing Keung & Brooks, Robert, 2026. "School-to-school collaboration and public service delivery: Evidence from parental satisfaction in urban China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 1072-1087.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecanpo:v:91:y:2026:i:c:p:1072-1087
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eap.2026.04.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0313592626001517
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eap.2026.04.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
    • I22 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Educational Finance; Financial Aid
    • H52 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Education
    • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecanpo:v:91:y:2026:i:c:p:1072-1087. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/economic-analysis-and-policy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.