Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
del Rosario
Abstract. This paper estimates the effect of school and student characteris-
tics on academic performance. Using data for 2002, the paper applies stochastic
frontier techniques to estimate the level of technical efficiency of a sample of
4,542 public and private schools. Our findings indicate that both school and
student characteristics have a positive and significant effect on academic per-
formance. It appears that private schools are more efficient due to a more
favourable environment since, on average, they receive students from higher
income families. However, assuming a similar environment, differences in effi-
ciency levels between private and public schools tend to disappear.
Key words: effficiency, stochastic frontier analysis, Colombia, education.
JEL classification: D61, I21.