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I present the first value-added models of learning production in private and government schools in India using unique panel data from Andhra Pradesh state. I examine the heterogeneity in private school value-added across different subjects, urban and rural areas, medium of instruction, and across age groups. Further, I also estimate private school effects on children's self-efficacy and agency. In rural areas, I find a substantial positive effect (>. 0.5 SD) of private schools on English, no effect on Mathematics and heterogeneous effects on Telugu for 8-10-year old students; at 15. years, there are modest effects (<. 0.2 SD) on Mathematics and Telugu receptive vocabulary. I find no evidence of a positive effect in urban areas or on psychosocial skills. Results on comparable test domains and age groups correspond closely with, and further extend, estimates from a parallel experimental evaluation.

This paper uses unique panel data to estimate value-added models of learning production in private and government schools in Andhra Pradesh (India), examine heterogeneity in the value-added of private schools, and identify the sources of learning in these schools. In rural areas there is a substantial positive effect of private schools on English, no effect on mathematics and heterogeneous effects on Telugu for 8–10 year old children; at 15 years, there are significant but modest effects on Telugu, mathematics and receptive vocabulary. In urban areas, there is no evidence of a positive private school effect. Teachers' absence and effort, teaching practices and class size significantly affect learning but teachers' education, tenure and experience do not. Children in private schools report more positive assessments of their school experience. Results correspond closely with comparable experimental estimates.

Various studies have noted that students enrolled in private schools in India perform better on average than students in government schools. In this paper, I show that large gaps in the test scores of children in private and public sector education are evident even at the point of initial enrolment in formal schooling and are associated with previous attendance in private and public preschools. Children in the sample were aged between 4.5 and 6 years at the time of the survey and were tested on receptive vocabulary and quantitative skills. Most (albeit not all) children in the sample had attended private and/or government preschools and at the time of the survey, about 44% had made a transition into formal schooling. Attending private preschools is associated with substantially, and significantly, higher test scores relative to attending public preschools. A considerable portion of this difference can be removed by controls for parental background and selected child characteristics but the gap remains significant. Possible implications of these results are discussed.

AbstractDeveloping countries increasingly invest in coalition building to effect gains in international trade negotiations. This essay reviews recent literature on coalitions to assess its contribution to our understanding of the causes, types, and effectiveness of developing country coalitions. In particular, the global diffusion of power is discussed as an important dynamic affecting coalitions in trade negotiations. Our understanding of how these coalitions operate would be strengthened by paying attention to the derivation of state interests, rather than specifying them exogenously, and to the negotiation tactics that states use when working in coalitions.