Educational Vouchers in Italy: Theory, Design, Effects

Abstract

In 2000, the Lombardy Regional government introduced, for the first time in Italy, a voucher plan to stimulate families to enroll their children to private schools. After this intervention, many other Regions launched similar policies. Despite the high political attention to this theme in Italy, there is almost no economic research on this theme. The voucher plan in Lombardy is now active since eight years, but there are not systematic attempts to evaluate its effects. This paper aims to contribute to fill this gap; more specifically, the objective of this study is twofold: [1] to describe and assess the characteristics of voucher plans in Italy, by means of an appropriate theoretical framework to identify the relationship between plans’ design and effects; and [2] to assess the effects of voucher plans in the Italian experience, by using the PISA dataset and other administrative data for this purpose. The main findings of this paper are that, even though many Italian regions have implemented vouchers plans, only one has the potential effects on influencing the educational market (namely, the program launched by the Lombardy Region). The theoretical framework, in fact, shows that the amount of resources devoted to the policy, as well as the number of students involved, is marginal in the other regional experiences. Nevertheless, the same theoretical framework provides suggestion that the Lombardy plan’s design is focused more on promoting freedom of choice than on improving efficiency in schooling provision. The empirical analysis confirms this prediction: while some indicators of school competition have been found significant in – positively – affecting schools’ performances (in terms of student achievement), there is not strong evidence that voucher policies improved school competition. All in all, however, the results cannot be interpreted as that the voucher plan developed in the Lombardy Region was useless. Since the original formulation by Friedman (1962), the primary purpose of vouchers is to protect the freedom of choice as a value; in this respect, the Lombardy Region voucher plan has been an effective intervention that also stimulated a wide political and cultural debate about this theme in Italy.

Keywords: educational vouchers, student achievement, public spending

JEL Classification: H52, I2, I21, I28