School Composition Effects in Spain: Accounting for Intercept and Slope Effects

Drawing on PISA 2012 data, in this paper we study the impact of school’s socio-economic composition on the science test scores for Spanish lower-secondary education students. We adopt a semi-parametric methodology that enables spillovers to affect all the parameters in the educational production function. We also deal with the issue of endogenous students’ sorting into schools with better socio-economic composition. The positive effect of school’s socio-economic composition is stronger when computed using the semi-parametric approach, suggesting the relevance of slope effects of school com-position. However, the spillovers are substantially reduced when the endogenous sorting of students is controlled for.