We study the competitive effects of charter schools in the context of Florida, home to one of the largest charter school sectors in the nation, on test scores, discipline, and attendance of students that remain in traditional public schools. Merged birth records and longitudinal administrative education data facilitate three estimation strategies: (1) individual student fixed effects; (2) sibling fixed effects; and (3) instrumental variables where we use information on the expected competitive pressure exposure based on ZIP code of birth as instrument. Furthermore, this extraordinary dataset allows us to investigate ample heterogeneities, including the role of school quality and different school choice options. Overall, we find small positive effects of increased competition that are concentrated among reading scores and to a lesser extent affect behavioral outcomes.

Professor Karbownik is an assistant professor of Economics at Emory University.  His research contributes to the labor economics discussion focusing on medium- and long-run educational, health and labor market outcomes. In the infant and childhood health area, he has an active research agenda using large-scale administrative data sets from several countries that span modern and historical settings. Professor Karbownik is further interested in how parental decisions and resources affect the human capital development of children, and how brothers and sisters affect each other as well as their parents. Finally, children and teenagers spend a significant portion of their formative years in schools interacting with peers, teachers, and school policies. Thus, a third arm of his research agenda analyzes the intended and unintended, immediate, and long-run effects of educational policies.