TY - JOUR

T1 - Heterogeneous effects of missing out on a place at a preferred secondary school in England

AU - Gorman, Emma

AU - Walker, Ian

N1 - This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Economics of Education Review. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Economics of Education Review, 81, 2021 DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2021.102082

PY - 2021/4/1

Y1 - 2021/4/1

N2 - Schools vary in quality, and high-performing schools tend to be oversubscribed: there are more applicants than places available. In this paper, we use nationally representative cohort data linked to administrative education records to study the consequences of failing to gain admission to one’s first-choice secondary school in England. Our empirical strategy leverages features of the institutional setting and the literature on school choice to make a case for a selection-on-observables identifying assumption. Failing to gain a place at a preferred school had null to small impacts on short-run academic attainment, but was associated with reductions in mental health, increased fertility and increased smoking rates in early in adulthood. These effects were especially pronounced in areas which deployed a manipulable assignment mechanism to allocate school places, where we also detected detrimental effects on high-stakes examination outcomes. Our results show that schools are important in shaping more than test scores, and that the workings of the school admission system play a fundamental role in ensuring access to good schools.

AB - Schools vary in quality, and high-performing schools tend to be oversubscribed: there are more applicants than places available. In this paper, we use nationally representative cohort data linked to administrative education records to study the consequences of failing to gain admission to one’s first-choice secondary school in England. Our empirical strategy leverages features of the institutional setting and the literature on school choice to make a case for a selection-on-observables identifying assumption. Failing to gain a place at a preferred school had null to small impacts on short-run academic attainment, but was associated with reductions in mental health, increased fertility and increased smoking rates in early in adulthood. These effects were especially pronounced in areas which deployed a manipulable assignment mechanism to allocate school places, where we also detected detrimental effects on high-stakes examination outcomes. Our results show that schools are important in shaping more than test scores, and that the workings of the school admission system play a fundamental role in ensuring access to good schools.

KW - Education

KW - school choice

KW - risky behaviours

KW - human capital

KW - market design

U2 - 10.1016/j.econedurev.2021.102082

DO - 10.1016/j.econedurev.2021.102082

M3 - Journal article

VL - 81

JO - Economics of Education Review

JF - Economics of Education Review

SN - 0272-7757

M1 - 102082

ER -