The impacts of school choice on regional economic growth

Abstract

School choice has recently become a common approach to address the problems facing education in the United States. Previous literature focuses predominately on the effects of school choice on student achievement levels. In this paper, I use county-level data to study the effects of school choice on regional economic growth. In particular, I use charter schools, vouchers, and open enrollment to measure the effects of school choice on population growth. The results indicate that charter schools have a positive influence on the growth of regions while vouchers and open enrollment exhibit no significant impacts during the time period estimated.