Centralized admission systems and school segregation: Evidence from a national reform

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Kutscher, Macarena; Nath, Shanjukta; Urzua, Sergio
• 署名单位: University System of Maryland; University of Maryland College Park; Stanford University; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2023.104863
• 发表日期: 2023
• 关键词: education; segregation; mechanism design

摘要

This paper investigates whether the adoption of centralized school admission systems can alter within -school socio-economic diversity relative to decentralized settings. We take advantage of the largest school-admission reform implemented to date: Chile's SAS, which in 2016 replaced the country's decen-tralized system with a Deferred Acceptance algorithm. We exploit its sequential introduction across regions to quantify its heterogeneous impact on segregation. The empirical analysis is carried out using administrative data and a Difference-in-Difference strategy. Our findings do not suggest an overall improvement in the representation of low-SES students across schools. SAS, however, increased within-school segregation in districts with high levels of pre-existing residential segregation or an exten-sive presence of private schools. The migration of high-SES students attending publicly funded schools to private institutions emerges as a potential driver. (C) 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.