School inputs, household substitution, and test scores
By: Jishnu Das ... [et al.[.
Contributors: National Bureau of Economic Research
Series: NBER working paper series -- working paper 16830; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) -- working paper no. 16830.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Description: "Empirical studies of the relationship between school inputs and test scores typically do not account for the fact that households will respond to changes in school inputs.  We present a dynamic household optimization model relating test scores to school and household inputs, and test its predictions in two very different low-income country settings - Zambia and India.  We measure household spending changes and student test score gains in response to unanticipated as well as anticipated changes in school funding.  Consistent with the optimization model, we find in both settings that households offset anticipated grants more than unanticipated grants.  We also find that unanticipated school grants lead to significant improvements in student test scores but anticipated grants have no impact on test scores.  Our results suggest that naïve estimates of public education spending on learning outcomes that do not account for optimal household responses are likely to be considerably biased if used to estimate parameters of an education production function"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Title from PDF file as viewed on 5/19/2011.

Includes bibliographical references.

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