TY  - JOUR
AU  - Angrist,Joshua
AU  - Bettinger,Eric
AU  - Kremer,Michael
TI  - Long-Term Consequences of Secondary School Vouchers: Evidence from Administrative Records in Colombia
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10713
PY  - 2004
Y2  - August 2004
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10713
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10713.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Joshua Angrist
Department of Economics
MIT, E52-353
50 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA  02142-1347
Tel: 617/253-8909
Fax: 617/253-1330
E-Mail: angrist@mit.edu

Eric Bettinger
Stanford School of Education
CERAS 522, 520 Galvez Mall
Stanford, CA 94305
Tel: 650/736-7727
Fax: 650/723-9931
E-Mail: ebettinger@stanford.edu

Michael Kremer
Harvard University
Department of Economics
Littauer Center M20
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-9145
Fax: 617/495-7730
E-Mail: mkremer@fas.harvard.edu
AB  - Colombia's PACES program provided over 125,000 poor children with vouchers that covered half the cost of private secondary school. The vouchers were renewable annually conditional on adequate academic progress. Since many vouchers were assigned by lottery, program effects can reliably be assessed by comparing lottery winners and losers. Estimates using administrative records suggest the PACES program increased secondary school completion rates by 15-20 percent. Correcting for the greater percentage of lottery winners taking college admissions tests, the program increased test scores by two-tenths of a standard deviation in the distribution of potential test scores. Boys, who have lower scores than girls in this population, show larger test score gains, especially in math.
ER  -