Pulled-in and crowded-out : heterogeneous outcomes of merit-based school choice

Author / Creator

Dalla Zuanna, Antonio, author

Available as

Online

Summary

We study the effects of changing the rule that defines how students are selected into high schools in a context where school capacity is fixed. Schools for which demand exceeds supply must necessar...

We study the effects of changing the rule that defines how students are selected into high schools in a context where school capacity is fixed. Schools for which demand exceeds supply must necessarily exclude some students from enrollment. We provide a theoretical framework to analyze the overall effect of policy changes, taking into account the crowding-out effect. By exploiting a reform that implemented merit-based allocation in Norway, we show that we can identify the relevant parameters. The reform had an overall negative effect because of the negative impact on crowded-out students. Different allocation rules would result in higher average outcomes.

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