Mitigating School Closures: Parental Responses and Tutoring Vouchers

ABSTRACT We investigate how school closures affect educational outcomes through parental responses. Using quasi‐experimental variation in school‐level closure days and linked administrative‐survey data, we find that 10 additional closure days raise private tutoring expenditure by 4.1% and within‐school test‐score dispersion by 25%; over the average 53‐day closure, low‐income students lose 0.09 SD. To quantify substitution between schooling and parental investment and evaluate compensatory policy, we estimate a tournament model in which schooling and tutoring jointly produce test scores. Tutoring substitutes for in‐person days, burdening low‐income households disproportionately. Counterfactuals show a means‐tested voucher fully offsets the resulting rise in inequality.