© 1999 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank
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Central Mandates and Local Incentives: The Colombia Education Voucher Program
Elizabeth M. King is with the Development Research Group at the World Bank, and Peter F. Orazem and Darin Wohlgemuth are with the Department of Economics at Iowa State University. The authors' e-mail addresses are eking{at}worldbank.org, pfo{at}iastate.edu, and darinw{at}iastate.edu. The authors are grateful to Marybell Gutiérrez, Martha Laverde, Carlos Pardo, Laura Rawlings, Carlos Torres, and Fabio Sànchez Torres for assistance in locating and accessing data. They also thank the referees for numerous helpful comments and suggestions, Berk Ozler and Dan Levy for expert assistance in organizing the data, and Donna Otto and Diana McLaughlin for preparing the manuscript. This study was funded jointly by the World Bank's Development Research Group and Research Support Budget under RPO 679–18.
In decentralized education systems programs that promote central mandates may have to be devolved to local governments, communities, and providers. When participation by local governments and providers is voluntary rather than compulsory, the determinants of program placement are important in predicting potential benefits to individuals. This article analyzes incentives for municipalities and private schools to participate in Colombia's voucher program. It finds that the demand for secondary education relative to the capacity of public schools and the availability of spaces in private schools in the municipality were key predictors of municipal participation, whereas the number of underserved students had a nonlinear effect on participation. Schools whose educational quality was moderate and charged moderate tuition fees were the most likely to participate; the program was less attractive to schools whose quality and fees were high and to schools whose quality and fees were low.
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