Publications

We show that score inflation yields residential sorting around what households expect to be better schools, with long-term consequences on the economic geography of neighborhoods. We consider primary school exams in England, where grading standards have triggered an inflation of indicators in the national performance tables since the mid-1990s. Local neighborhoods were gentrified because of school improvements artificially signaled by score inflation. Competition between schools increased, yielding a real improvement in their quality. Effects of score inflation on house prices, deprivation and local economic activities are identifiable through to the present day.

I use mixed-income public housing regenerations in London as a natural experiment to identify how schools affect low-income students’ educational achievement when affluent households flow into their neighborhood. I compare student achievement in schools in the same neighborhood located at different distances from a regeneration before and after its completion. I employ a grandfathering instrument for enrollment in treated schools to address potential endogenous mobility. Students exposed to regenerations have higher test scores at the end of primary school. I estimate that schools explain 65–81% of the overall achievement effects, which are mediated by changes in the student body’s composition.

A 2010 education reform gave English schools the option to become academies, autonomous but state-funded schools. Academies can opt for two different models of governance by choosing to remain standalone schools or join an academy chain. We investigate the causal effect of the governance model on student achievement and school inputs. We find that students in academy chains have higher end-of-primary school test scores, with stronger effects for low achievers and early converter academies. School chains are more efficient than standalone academies, achieving better results while spending less overall. Survey data suggest that chains favor management changes, whereas standalone academies make changes related to educational practices.