Lexical-Semantic Knowledge in Mandarin-English and Spanish-English Bilingual Children: A Comparative Study

Miguel Urquiola

In 1981, Chile began funding public and private schools with equivalent per-student subsidies or “vouchers.” This created a dynamic educational market: more than a thousand new private, often for-profit schools opened, and the private enrollment rate increased from about 20 to 40 percent within a decade. This project addresses three questions regarding Chile’s educational market: 1) Why do private schools choose to locate in some local markets, but not in others? 2) What effect does private school entry have on the sorting of students across public and private schools within local markets? 3) What effect does private school entry have on the net outcomes of students within local markets?

About Miguel Urquiola

Miguel Urquiola is an Assistant Professor at SIPA (School of International and Public Affairs) and the Economics Department, Columbia University. His research focuses on educational issues in developing countries and the U.S., covering topics like the effects of voucher financing, class size reductions, and accountability schemes. Prior to moving to Columbia, he was an assistant professor of Economics at Cornell, and in the past also worked for the World Bank’s research department, the Bolivian government, and the Bolivian Catholic University's MBA and public policy programs. He received a B.A. from Swarthmore College and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley.