The determinants of parental effort in education production: do parents respond to changes in class size?

The present paper supplements the traditional class size literature by exploring the causal relationship between class size and parental effort in education production. Class size variation that is exogenous to parental effort comes from interaction between enrollment and a maximum class size rule of 30 students in the lower secondary school in Norway. The class size rule is used to generate a credible instrument for class size, and moreover, the discontinuities generated by the class size rule are used explicitly to reveal potential class size effects (Quart J Econ 114 (1999) 533). The evidence is not conclusive, but there are indications that parents tend to reduce their efforts as class size increases, in particular when class size increases from low levels. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.