Centre for Economic and Regional Studies Hungarian Academy of Sciences Centre of Excellence

Start: 03/16/2017 14:00

End: 03/16/2017 16:00

Location: Budapest XI., Budaörsi út 45. VIII/807 conference room

Description

Lecture:

Fritz Schiltz
Do parents respond to school inspection reports?
A quasi-experimental study

Abstract
School inspection reports provide transparency in the market for schools. It allows consumers (parents and pupils) to (re)consider school choice more objectively. We exploit the fact that chool inspectorates selects schools randomly – enforced by law – for a detailed assessment of chool quality. Unfavorable outcomes of the inspection induce reputation effects, which might trigger a lower demand for the school. This paper contributes to the growing literature on school information and parental choice. We find that parental demand for schools is strongly affected y shocks in transparency, following the publication of, especially positive, school inspection eports. Also, these responses vary with the school’s location and socio-economic composition. Flanders makes a unique educational setting for a quasi-experimental approach since no central examinations are performed. As a result, school inspection reports are the sole source of school quality information parents can rely on. The randomness in school selection by inspectorates combined with the absence of other accountability tools results in a truly exogenous shock in transparency allowing causal inference.