Sandström, F. M. & Bergsrtöm, F., (2002)

‘School vouchers in practice – competition won’t hurt you.’

Research Institute of Industrial Economics working paper no. 578

• Examines the impact of private school competition on the outcomes of public school pupils in Sweden, using a large Swedish dataset.
• In 1992 Sweden introduced a reform forcing municipalities to give funds to independent schools, amounting to 85% of the average cost of per pupil in municipal schools.
• Between 1992 and 2001 the number of independent schools more than quadrupled.
  

Key results:

• Using the proportion of pupils in independent schools as a proxy for competition, the authors find weak statistical evidence that competition improves the quality of public schools. They emphasise that they find no evidence at all that competition diminishes public school quality.
• Strictly speaking it is the threat of competition which should matter to public schools, however, not the actual number of independent schools. Thus the author’s proxy for competition is imperfect at best.