TY  - JOUR
AU  - Hastings,Justine S.
AU  - Kane,Thomas J.
AU  - Staiger,Douglas O.
TI  - Preferences and Heterogeneous Treatment Effects in a Public School Choice Lottery
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 12145
PY  - 2006
Y2  - April 2006
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12145
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12145.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Justine S. Hastings
Brown University
Department of Economics
64 Waterman Street
Providence, RI 02912
Tel: 203/432-3714
Fax: 203/432-6323
E-Mail: justine_hastings@brown.edu

Thomas J. Kane
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Center for Education Policy Research
50 Church St., 4th Floor
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/496-4359
E-Mail: kaneto@gse.harvard.edu

Douglas O. Staiger
Dartmouth College
Department of Economics
HB6106, 301 Rockefeller Hall
Hanover, NH 03755-3514
Tel: 603/646-2979
Fax: 603/646-2122
E-Mail: douglas.staiger@dartmouth.edu
AB  - This paper combines a model of parental school choice with randomized school lotteries in order to understand the effects of being assigned to a first-choice school on academic outcomes. We outline a simple framework in which those who place the highest weight on academics when choosing a school benefit the most academically when admitted. Although the average student does not improve academically when winning a school lottery, this average impact conceals a range of impacts for identifiable subgroups of students. Children of parents whose choices revealed a strong preference for academic quality experienced significant gains in test scores as a result of attending their chosen school, while children whose parents weighted academic characteristics less heavily experienced academic losses. This differential effect is largest for children of parents who forfeit the most in terms of utility gains from proximity and racial match to choose a school with stronger academics. Depending on one's own race and neighborhood, a preference for academic quality can either conflict with or be reinforced by other objectives, such as a desire for proximity and same-race peers.
ER  -