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
