Estimating the Effects of Private School Vouchers in Multi-District Economies

This paper estimates a general equilibrium model of school quality and household residential and school choice for economies with multiple public school districts and private (religious and non-sectarian) schools. The estimates are used to simulate two large-scale private school voucher programs in the Chicago metropolitan area: universal vouchers, and vouchers restricted to non-sectarian schools. In the simulations, both programs increase private school enrollment, and affect household residential choice. Under universal vouchers enrollment grows at all private schools, yet under non-sectarian vouchers private school enrollment expands less, and religious school enrollment declines with the voucher level. Fewer households benefit from non-sectarian vouchers. (JEL I22, H73, H42, C51). *This paper is based on my PhD dissertation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I wish to thank my advisors Derek Neal, Steve Durlauf and Phil Haile for their guidance and encouragement. I am also grateful to Pete