Parental Responses to Information About School Quality: Evidence from Linked Survey and Administrative Data

We study the interaction between family and school inputs by identifying the causal impact of information about school quality on parental time investment into children. Inspection ratings provide news that shifts parental beliefs about school quality, and hence investment into children. We study this using household panel data from England, linked to administrative records on school inspection ratings. We find that parents receiving good news over school quality significantly decrease time investment into their children. We provide insights on the distributional and test score impacts of the nationwide inspections regime, through multiple margins of endogenous response of parents and children.