Abstract. I estimate the long-run earnings impacts of for-profit and non-profit charter high schools in Sweden, which as of 2023 enroll nearly half of all high school students in urban areas. Unlike in many other settings, there are no schools operating outside of the public system: all schools rely on equal public funding, cannot charge top-up fees, and are subject to the same regulation. Using a combination of quasi-experimental and value-added methods, I find that charter schools lower earnings by 2% on average—comparable to the returns to half a year of schooling in similar settings. My results suggest that for-profits generate these losses by hiring less-educated, lower-paid teachers, non-profits by specializing in arts and humanities programs. In a discrete choice framework using rank-ordered school applications, I show that students’ preferences are weakly related to schools’ earnings impacts and instead center on location and program offerings, which explain most of the charter market share.

Abstract. We study the relative productivity of private and public institutions at the preschool and primary school levels using panel data from 215 villages in Tamil Nadu. Private preschools show higher test score value-added in math and language (∼0.59−0.74σ) and outperform government providers in nearly all villages. This productivity difference explains 60% of the socioeconomic test score gap before school entry. These results contrast starkly with primary schooling, where we find no evidence of a private sector premium in math and negative effects in local language. Test score value-added is positively correlated between private and government options in a village, both at the preschool and primary school levels. Quality is also correlated across levels; villages with more productive primary schools also tend to have more productive preschools. Our findings inform debates on achieving universal foundational skills and highlight the need to improve the quality of preschools available to lower-income families.

Abstract. Assessment-led school reforms are the central pillar of policy packages recommended to address low student achievement in developing countries. We study the effectiveness of such a reform that has tested over 6 million students annually since 2011 in a large Indian state. First, we use direct audit evidence to assess truthfulness. Comparing responses to the same test questions by the same students shows a doubling of reported achievement in administrative data versus independent tests. We show that this difference is due to cheating and is lower in grades with multiple test booklets and external grading. Ordinal information on school rankings is preserved despite manipulation but, despite stated policy goals, we find no evidence that classification into lower letter-grades led to improvements in monitoring, school functioning or student achievement. Overall, in contexts with weak governance, interventions relying on test-based accountability appear unlikely to succeed without complementary investments to assure data integrity.

Abstract. I study the effects of ratings designed to capture the financial risk associated with apartment ownership in Sweden. I find a discontinuous impact around rating thresholds on sales prices and real estate agents’ pricing decisions, but only after ratings started being displayed in online listings. This is not driven by changes in the number of bidders in apartment auctions. However, the magnitude of the rating effect is larger for sales administered by high- relative to low-quality real estate agents. My results suggest that ratings conveying financial information to consumers must ensure a high degree of salience to be effective. However, financial intermediaries remain likely to play a role in the transmission of such information.

Abstract. Admission to high school in Sweden is based on the final grades from junior high. This article compares students’ final mathematics grade with new data from a high school introductory test score in mathematics. Both the grades and the test are based on the same syllabus, but teachers enjoy great discretion when deciding grades. The results show a substantial grading difference, consistent with grading bias against boys.