Rational cuts? The local impact of closing undersized schools

Di Cataldo, Marco and Romani, Giulia (2024) Rational cuts? The local impact of closing undersized schools. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 109. ISSN 0166-0462

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Abstract

The availability of public education services can influence residential choices. Therefore, policies aimed at ‘rationalising’ service provision by reducing the number of undersized nodes in the public school network can lead to population decline, especially in spatially isolated areas lacking valid alternatives to the removed services. This paper examines the demographic and income effects of primary school closures by exploiting an Italian education reform that resulted in the contraction of the school network. We assess whether school closures impact households’ residential choices, over and above preexisting negative population trends that motivate school closures. Our findings indicate that municipalities affected by school closures experience significant reductions in population and income. The effect is primarily driven by peripheral municipalities located far away from economic centres and distant from the next available primary school. This evidence indicates that school ‘rationalisation policies’, by fostering depopulation of peripheral areas, have an influence on the spatial distribution of households and income, thus affecting territorial disparities.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2024 The Author(s)
Divisions:	Geography & Environment
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory L Education
Date Deposited:	12 Nov 2024 10:36
Last Modified:	19 Nov 2024 14:45
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/126034

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