Information, Preferences, and Household Demand for School Value Added / Robert Ainsworth, Rajeev Dehejia, Cristian Pop-Eleches, Miguel Urquiola.

By:

Ainsworth, Robert

Contributor(s):

Material type: Text

TextSeries: Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. w28267.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2020.Description: 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white)Subject(s):

I20 - General

Online resources:

Available additional physical forms:

Hardcopy version available to institutional subscribers

Abstract: This paper examines the roles that information and preferences play in determining whether households choose schools with high value added. We study Romanian school markets using administrative data, a survey, and an experiment. The administrative data show that, on average, households could select schools with 1 s.d. worth of additional value added. This may reflect that households have incorrect beliefs about schools' value added, or that their preferences lead them to prioritize other school traits. We elicit households' beliefs and find that they explain less than a fifth of the variation in value added. We then inform randomly selected households about the value added of the schools in their towns. This improves the accuracy of households' beliefs and leads low-achieving students to attend higher-value added schools. We next estimate households' preferences and predict their choices under the counterfactual of fully accurate beliefs. We find that beliefs account for 18 (11) percent of the value added that households with low- (high-) achieving children leave unexploited. Interestingly, for households with low-achieving children, the experiment seems to have affected both beliefs and preferences. This generates larger effects on choices than would be predicted via impacts on beliefs alone.

Tags from this library: No tags from this library for this title. Log in to add tags.

Average rating: 0.0 (0 votes)

Holdings
Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Working Paper	Biblioteca Digital	Colección NBER	nber w28267 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan

Total holds: 0

Collection: Colección NBER Close shelf browser (Hides shelf browser)

Previous	No cover image available	No cover image available	No cover image available	No cover image available	No cover image available	No cover image available	No cover image available	Next
Previous	nber w28264 When the Great Equalizer Shuts Down: Schools, Peers, and Parents in Pandemic Times /	nber w28265 What Were the Odds? Estimating the Market's Probability of Uncertain Events /	nber w28266 Supply-Side Variation in the Use of Emergency Departments /	nber w28267 Information, Preferences, and Household Demand for School Value Added /	nber w28268 Prep School for Poor Kids: The Long-Run Impacts of Head Start on Human Capital and Economic Self-Sufficiency /	nber w28269 Do Employees Benefit from Worker Representation on Corporate Boards? /	nber w2827 Pregnancy Resolution as an Indicator of Wantedness and its Impact on the Initiation of Early Prenatal Care /	Next

December 2020.

This paper examines the roles that information and preferences play in determining whether households choose schools with high value added. We study Romanian school markets using administrative data, a survey, and an experiment. The administrative data show that, on average, households could select schools with 1 s.d. worth of additional value added. This may reflect that households have incorrect beliefs about schools' value added, or that their preferences lead them to prioritize other school traits. We elicit households' beliefs and find that they explain less than a fifth of the variation in value added. We then inform randomly selected households about the value added of the schools in their towns. This improves the accuracy of households' beliefs and leads low-achieving students to attend higher-value added schools. We next estimate households' preferences and predict their choices under the counterfactual of fully accurate beliefs. We find that beliefs account for 18 (11) percent of the value added that households with low- (high-) achieving children leave unexploited. Interestingly, for households with low-achieving children, the experiment seems to have affected both beliefs and preferences. This generates larger effects on choices than would be predicted via impacts on beliefs alone.