Original source
Are Educational Vouchers Only Redistributive?
Dated research draft · Version date: 20 November 2009
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Average Effect Size (AES) Quality Indexing
"To estimate the Average Effect Size we first scale outcome variables in terms of standard deviation units, and so that positive numbers indicate more desirable peers. We jointly estimate the effects of the voucher on observable measures of peer quality and report these "average effect sizes" for vocational schools..."
Demand-Side Commercial Match Optimization
"If the voucher increases the share of students who can attend a commercial school (because they switch to private commercial schools), then this effect may be driving the increase in retention/years of education attained."
Disbursement Timing Liquidity Incentives
"One of the treatments provided families with a lump-sum payment about the time that fees were due for the next school year and another provided a lump-sum payment at the start of tertiary schooling. These lump-sum payments increased college attendance by over 9 percentage points."
Elite School Non-Participation Filter
"Students receiving the voucher could attend any private school that accepted the voucher; however, many schools, particularly the elite private schools in Colombia, would not accept the voucher. Slightly less than half of private secondary schools participated in the voucher program."
College Entrance Exam Participation Graduation Proxy
"Since 90% of Colombian students take the ICFES exam (World Bank 1993), this is likely a good proxy for high school graduation, while only about 75% of these students go on to post-secondary schooling... Hence, we view participation in the ICFES exam as a proxy for high school graduation more than an indicator of college attendance."
Faculty Credentialing-Curricular Decoupling
"When we look at schools that voucher winners attended, we find that winners were more likely to attend schools with a greater proportion of teachers who only have secondary school training and a smaller proportion of teachers with advanced degrees."
Grade Repetition Reduction Efficiency
"In non-vocational schools, the effects on school years finished, grade repetition, and 8th grade completion are statistically significant... lottery winners were 15 percentage points more likely to have attended private school, had completed 0.1 more years of schooling, and were about 10 percentage points more likely to have finished 8th grade, primarily because they were less likely to repeat grades."
Heterogeneous Peer Preference Sorting
"It is worth noting that even if voucher programs benefit participants only by allowing them to obtain peers they prefer, this need not harm others if students are heterogeneous and have different preferences about which peers they prefer."
Ideological Externality Risk in Choice Markets
"One other channel through which vouchers could potentially create negative externalities is if they lead to the creation of schools teaching ideologies that are inimical to other members of the population."
Linear-in-Means Peer Externalities Model
"Under the hypothesis that $\beta_2>0$ and $\beta_1=0$ vouchers work purely through a productive effect and the benefit to participants will be equal to the social benefit."
Monotonic Selection Bounds Adjustment
"The unconditional comparisons are likely lower bounds on the true estimate since the average test scores for voucher winners are likely lower because the voucher affected the probability of taking the exam."
Non-Academic Human Capital Accumulation
"Youth unemployment is one of the most pressing social and economic problems facing less developed countries... Many countries, like Colombia, suffer from high youth unemployment, and little is known about how best to smooth the school-to-work transition in less developed countries, or how to boost human capital for those not on the academic schooling track."
Non-Peer Productive Voucher Gains
"Despite not having observably more desirable peers, among those who applied to vocational schools, voucher lottery winners have significantly better educational outcomes than losers, including a 25% increase in the likelihood of graduating from high school and a one-third of a standard deviation increase in college entrance exam scores."
Partial-Coverage Co-Payment Funding
"While initially the voucher covered most tuition fees, the government did to increase the voucher to keep pace with inflation and by 1998 when we collected data, the voucher covered about 56% of tuition."
Performance-Contingent Voucher Renewal Incentives
"Students' vouchers were renewed only if students successfully completed a grade. The incentive to pass a grade is similar to cash incentive programs which reward students for schooling outcomes."
Private Sector Apprenticeship Alignment
"Students in industrial schools are more likely to participate in apprenticeships that take place with Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje (SENA)... while students in schools with a commercial focus are more likely to undertake apprenticeships in the private sector, working in offices, small enterprises, universities, and communications."
Private Sector Curricular Flexibility
"In Colombia, public vocational schools have a much higher proportion of offerings in industrial vocational training, such as metal working, carpentry, or electrical working, whereas private schools are much more likely to offer vocational training in service industries, like business, secretarial work, communication, and computers."
Short-Run Capacity Externality Dynamics
"In the short run, before private school capacity can respond, school choice could hurt non-participants by squeezing them out of a limited supply of private school places."
Supply-Side Voucher Market Entry
"A number of new schools are believed to have been created in response to Colombia's voucher program."
Union-Constrained Faculty Adjustment Rigidity
"Additionally, in public schools, hiring and firing of teachers is strongly influenced by FECODE, the Colombian teachers union, whereas in private schools the school principal exercises such authority. The potential to adapt quickly to the needs of the labour market depends on a school's ability to change curriculum and, more importantly, select qualified teachers."
Utility-Bill Stratification Targeting
"To enforce the eligibility rule, parents were required to present a utility bill with household stratification. In addition, vouchers were only available to students attending public primary schools."
Voucher Non-Portability Identification Strategy
"Because it was administratively difficult to retain the voucher if one switched schools, there was considerable stickiness in schools attended by voucher winners. Less than 20% of students that transferred after the first year of the voucher were able to retain their voucher."