The willingness to pay for school quality

Last registered on January 21, 2026
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
The willingness to pay for school quality
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0014672
Initial registration date
November 20, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
December 02, 2024, 11:06 AM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
January 21, 2026, 7:00 AM EST

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country
Switzerland
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Thea Zöllner
Affiliation
University of Bern
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Stefan C. Wolter
PI Affiliation
University of Bern
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Maria Cattaneo
PI Affiliation
Swiss Coordination Centre for Research in Education
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2024-11-21
End date
2025-01-31
Keywords
Education
Additional Keywords
preferences, parents, children, survey, school quality
JEL code(s)
I2 J1 J18 J24
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Parents commonly seek the best possible school for their children. In countries where students are assigned schools based on their place of residence, economic literature shows that the presence of better schools in a district is reflected in increased property prices and higher prices for renting appartements. Most economic studies focus on school performance as the primary measure of quality driving these premiums. While an emerging literature looks at additional school attributes, such as the share of students eligible for free school meals, little is known about preferences for student composition. We contribute to this literature by investigating parents' willingness to pay for a certain pupil composition in addition to school performance. Specifically, we assess parental preferences for the share of foreign students, the share of students with special needs, and school performance. Using a discrete choice experiment with 2,000 Swiss parents of school-age children, we assess their preferences by having them choose between various school options.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Cattaneo, Maria, Stefan C. Wolter and Thea Zöllner. 2026. "The willingness to pay for school quality ." AEA RCT Registry. January 21. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.14672-2.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2024-11-21
Intervention End Date
2025-01-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
The primary dependent variable measures which of two alternatives (appartements) a participant chooses. The alternatives vary in four attributes. These are the rental cost of nearby appartements, the rank of the school in student assessments, the share of students not speaking the school language and finally the share of students with special. These attributes will allow us to measure the willingness to pay for an appartement that grants access to a school with specific characteristics.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
We will estimate heterogeneous preferences among respondents. Preference heterogeneity will be investigated for respondent characteristics, as well as regional characteristics and educational levels. Next to looking at the coefficients corresponding to the four attributes, we are interested in the two-way interactions, such as the two-way interaction between the ranking of the school with the share of foreign students and the share of students with special needs.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We examine a discrete choice experiment that is embedded into an online survey of around 2000 Swiss parents of school-age children. The respondents are asked about their preferences for four attributes (rental cost of properties near the school, school rank in student assessments, share of students not speaking the school language, share students with special needs) for their child's school.
Experimental Design Details
To analyze parents' preferences for school attributes, we will conduct a survey experiment in an online survey that is representative in terms of language regions. The survey will be carried out by a professional survey institute among Swiss residents who have compulsory-school-age children in 2024.
Given that students in Switzerland are assigned to schools based on their place of residence, we assess parents' preferences for i) school performance, ii) the share of students not speaking the school language, and iii) the share of students with special needs by calculating their willingness to pay a rent premium to be able to reside in the desired school district. Using a choice experiment, we ask respondents to imagine they are moving and must choose between two apartments that differ in price and school district and, thus, in the school to which their child will be assigned. The respondent must answer which of the two alternatives they prefer.
The alternatives differ by the following attributes:
- Monthly rent of the apartment (quantitative, 2 levels): +/- 10% of their current rent.
- Ranking of school in terms of academic schooling outcomes (quantitative, 3 levels): Best 25, Average, Bottom 25
- Share of students not speaking the school language (quantitative, X levels): 10%, 20%, 30%
- Share of students with special needs (quantitative, X levels): 10%, 20%, 30%
We create different choice sets that differ in attributes. Respondents will be randomly allocated to the choice sets of one of the three blocks. We stratify block randomization on language region.
We will implement a soft launch and, if necessary, revise the attribute levels after the soft launch. In the case that we need to adjust the attribute levels, we will not use the data of the soft launch for the main analysis.
The primary outcomes of interest are the coefficients corresponding to our four attributes and, in the case of school ranking, its interaction with the share of students not speaking the school language, and the share of students with special needs. With the dependent variable being the likelihood of an alternative being chosen, we estimate the previously mentioned coefficients using mixed logit models (MXL).
Randomization Method
By computer
Randomization Unit
Individual level
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
2000 parents of school-age children
Sample size: planned number of observations
2000 parents of school-age children
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
2000 parents of school-age children
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Ethikkommission, Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultät
IRB Approval Date
2024-10-17
IRB Approval Number
332024
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
January 31, 2025, 12:00 +00:00
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
January 31, 2025, 12:00 +00:00
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
2672 respondents
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
No
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Abstract
Switzerland features strong socio-economic segregation and no formal school choice, making residential relocation the only channel through which parents can access preferred
schools. Identifying how parents value school attributes is therefore essential but challenging, given that choices bundle multiple characteristics. We address this by conducting a discrete choice experiment with nearly 2,700 parents with school-aged children, allowing us to estimate willingness to pay (WTP) for individual and combined school attributes. We find that a substantial minority of parents value academic quality so highly that their preferences are effectively price-insensitive. Among price sensitive parents, academic quality remains central, but they also exhibit positive WTP for schools with fewer students with special educational needs and fewer non-native-speaking peers. Interaction effects are strong: WTP for reductions in special-needs peers is highest if the school is among the academically strongest. Accounting for attribute interactions further reveals marked heterogeneity, with parents clustering into seven distinct preference types.
Citation
Maria A. Cattaneo, Stefan Wolter, Thea Zöllner (2026): Paying for peers? Parental willingness to pay for school composition and quality in Switzerland. RFBerlin Discussion Paper No. 018/26
URL
https://www.rfberlin.com/network-paper/paying-for-peers-parental-willingness-to-pay-for-school-composition-and-quality-in-switzerland/

Reports & Other Materials