An Alternative Instrument for Private School Competition

Empirical studies estimating the effect of private school competition on student outcomes commonly use the share of Catholics in the local population as an instrument for private school competition. However, it has recently been argued that since this instrument is likely to be correlated with unmeasured student characteristics that vary across localities, it cannot be a valid instrument for private school competition. I suggest using instead the local share of Catholics in the population in 1890 and its squared term. I show that these instruments are very strong and are also exogenous to both student achievements and private school competition. These instruments can also be applied to estimate the treatment effect of Catholic schools.School choice, demand for schooling, Catholic share, competition.

Religious Participation versus Shopping: What Makes People Happier?

In this paper, we first explore how an exogenous increase in the opportunity cost of religious participation affects individuals' religious participation and reported happiness using data from the General Social Survey. The exogenous shift in the cost of religious participation is a result of repealing of so-called blue laws which restrict retail activity on Sundays. We find that repealing blue laws causes a significant decline in the level of religious participation of white women and in their happiness. We do not observe any significant decline in reported happiness of other groups whose religious participation was not significantly affected by repeal. We also use repeal as an instrumental variable (IV) for church attendance and provide direct evidence that church attendance has a significant positive effect on happiness, especially for women.religious participation, happiness, blue laws

Religious Pluralism, Religious Market Shares and the Demand for Religious Schooling

We develop a model of school choice in which the demand for religious schooling is driven partly by the desire of parents to limit their children’s exposure to the influences of competing religions. This framework links the literature on the effects of religious market shares on the within-denomination intensity of religious activity with a separate literature relating religious pluralism to the overall level of religious participation. The model predicts that when a religious group’s share of the local population grows, the fraction of that group’s members whose children attend religious schools decreases. In addition, it implies that the overall demand for religious schooling is a positive function of both the local religiosity level and the level of religious pluralism, as measured by a Herfindahl Index. Using both U.S. county-level data and individual data from ECLS-K and NELS:88, we find evidence strongly consistent with the model’s predictions. Our findings also illustrate that failing to control for the local religiosity level in estimating the effect of religious pluralism on religious participation, as is common in previous studies, may lead a researcher to erroneously conclude that pluralism has a negative effect on participation.Religious participation, school choice, religious pluralism

RELIGIOSITY AND PAROCHIAL SCHOOL CHOICE: CAUSE OR EFFECT?

In this paper, we examine the effect of religiosity as measured by attendance at religious services on religious school choice. Particular attention is given to the possibly endogenous relationship between school choice and religiosity. IV probit estimates indicate that religiosity is substantially biased downward in probit estimates of parochial school choice. Data from the National Opinion Research Center’s “General Social Survey” are used.Education, Parochial Schools, Endogeneity

Class Size and the Regression Discontinuity Design: The Case of Public Schools

Using a rich individual-level dataset on secondary public schools in Israel, we find strong evidence for discontinuities in the relationship between enrollment and household characteristics at cutoff points induced by a maximum class size rule. Our findings extend existing work that documents such discontinuities only among private schools (Urquiola and Verhoogen, 2009). These discontinuities violate the assumptions underlying the regression discontinuity design, which are crucial for identification. Consequently, IV estimates of class size effects are likely to be seriously biased. Potential manipulation of the treatment assignment rule by public schools warrants caution in applying a regression discontinuity design to estimate class size effects and indicates that institutional context is crucial for its scope of applicability.regression discontinuity design, class size

SELECTING CANDIDATES FOR ADMISSION TO AN ECONOMICS DEGREE PROGRAM

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An Analysis of Private School Closings

We add to the small literature on private school supply by exploring exits of K-12 private schools. We find that the closure of private schools is not an infrequent event, and use national survey data from the National Center for Education Statistics to study closures of private schools. We assume that the probability of an exit is a function of excess supply of private schools over the demand, as well as the school's characteristics such as age, size, and religious affiliation. Our empirical results generally support the implications of the model. Working Paper 07-0