Journal Archive

Home > Journal Archive
Cover Image
  • P-ISSN 2586-2995
  • E-ISSN 2586-4130
Cite

KDI Journal of Economic Policy. Vol. 38, No. 3, August 2016, pp. 1-15

https://doi.org/10.23895/kdijep.2016.38.3.1

× KDI Open Access is a program of fully open access journals to facilitate the widest possible dissemination of high-quality research. All research articles published in KDI JEP are immediately, permanently and freely available online for everyone to read, download and share in terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Autonomy, Incentives, and School Performance: Evidence from the 2009 Autonomous Private High School Policy in Korea

YOON SOO PARK

Author & Article History

Manuscript received 18 March 2016; revision received 01 April 2016; accepted 29 June 2016.

Abstract

Improving the quality of school education is one of the key policy concerns in Korea. This paper examines whether providing schools with adequate autonomy and incentives can meet the policy goals by looking at a recent policy reform in Korea. In 2009, the Korean government granted autonomy to certain private high schools on the condition that no financial subsidies would be provided to the schools. Because the autonomous private high schools cannot receive a subsidy, they have a strong incentive to meet parental demands because schools failing to meet these demands will lose students and will have to close. Applying the value-added model to longitudinal data at the student level, I find that students entering these autonomous schools show faster growth in their academic achievement than their peers in traditional non-autonomous schools. These results suggest that providing schools with autonomy and incentives can be a useful policy tool for improving school education.

Keywords

Autonomous Private High School, School Effect, Academic Achievement, School Autonomy, Secondary Education in Korea

JEL Code

I20, I28, C21

상단으로 이동

KDIJEP