‘Perceived’ Competition and Performance in Italian Secondary Schools: New Evidence from OECD-PISA 2006

In this paper, we investigate the effects of competition on the Italian secondary schools’ performance, measured through Math achievement scores (PISA2006 dataset). Competition is measured by using an indicator of ‘perceived’ competition (built from an answer provided by the schools’ principals). The methodology employed is propensity score matching, corrected to take into account heteroskedasticity and finite sample bias. The results show that a positive effect of competition on schools’ performance has been detected. Nevertheless, this effect is quite low (between 2% and 3% computed at the average score level), coherently with previous findings about the Italian educational system and worldwide. What is relevant for policy-making here is that it seems that competition impacts on schools’ performance even in a country like Italy in which specific pro-competitive policies are quite absent.