Pricing Private Education in Urban India: Demand, Use and Impact Presenter: James Berry Co-author(s): Priya Mukherjee
Abstract
Private education services–including both private schools and after-school tutoring– forms a sub-stantial part of the education sector in the developing world. We conduct a field experiment to study the role of prices in the market for tutoring in Delhi’s slums. Using a two-part pricing de-sign, we identify whether higher willingness to pay is associated with higher attendance in tutoring classes and whether prices have causal impacts on attendance and dropout. We find that higher willingness to pay is associated with higher attendance, but that lower prices reduce dropout. Using assigned prices as instruments for take-up of the classes, we find no evidence that tutoring impacts average test scores.