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dc.titleConstrained School Choice and the Demand for Effective Schools
dc.contributor.authorBeuermann, Diether
dc.contributor.authorPariguana, Marco
dc.contributor.orgunitCountry Department Caribbean Group
dc.coverageBarbados
dc.coverageThe Caribbean
dc.date.available2026-01-13T09:57:01
dc.date.issue2025-12-23T00:12:00
dc.description.abstractChoosing a school is one of the most important decisions parents make with regards to their children's human capital, yet they often face restricted choice sets. We study parental preferences over peer quality and school effectiveness in the centralized education market of Barbados, where admissions are based on a one-shot exam and parents face a binding cap on the number of schools to which they can apply. Exploiting a policy reform that further tightened this cap, we show that parents responded by omitting the most selective schools from their applications, underscoring how market design shapes application behavior. We then estimate parental preferences for school effectiveness measured by impacts on test scores and adult wages as well as peer quality. Preference estimates under the assumption of truth-telling indicate that parents do not value effectiveness after controlling for peer quality. In contrast, preference estimates under the assumption of market stability, which allows for strategic behavior, show that parents place substantial weight on both effectiveness and peer quality. This divergence arises because the most selective schools are also the most effective, forcing parents to trade off effectiveness against admission probabilities.
dc.format.extent64
dc.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0013875
dc.identifier.urlhttps://publications.iadb.org/publications/english/document/Constrained-School-Choice-and-the-Demand-for-Effective-Schools.pdf
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherInter-American Development Bank
dc.subjectHigher Education
dc.subjectEducational Research
dc.subjectTest Score
dc.subjectPublic School
dc.subjectHigh School
dc.subjectHuman Capital
dc.subjectEducational Test
dc.subjectEducational Institution
dc.subjectSchool Choice
dc.subject.jelcodeI21 - Analysis of Education
dc.subject.jelcodeI24 - Education and Inequality
dc.subject.jelcodeI28 - Government Policy
dc.subject.jelcodeJ24 - Human Capital • Skills • Occupational Choice • Labor Productivity
dc.typeWorking Papers
idb.identifier.pubnumberIDB-WP-01777
idb.operationRG-T4588
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