Abstract. In 1999, the city of Bogotá, Colombia launched the Concession School program designed to broaden the coverage and quality of basic education. It consists of a contract between a group of private schools and the public educational system such that private agents provide education for low-income students. This paper tests three main hypotheses concerning the impact of concessions on the quality of education: first, dropout rates are lower in concession schools than in similar public schools; second, other public schools nearby the concession schools have lower dropout rates in comparison with other public schools outside the area of influence; third, test scores from concession schools are higher than scores in similar public schools. The paper presents evidence in favor of the three hypotheses, using propensity score and matching estimators
