To improve the quality of education, one can either directly reward performance or introduce school choice, private provision, and demand subsidies. The Chilean voucher scheme combines both approaches: an attendance-related subsidy favors school choice and creates incentives for schools to promote attendance throughout the year. With imperfect monitoring, however, institutions may respond by manipulating performance indicators. By analyzing audit data, we find evidence that a large fraction of Chilean schools – including public schools – over-report attendance, with a higher prevalence among for-profit and under-achieving institutions. Expenditure data suggest that manipulation among for-profit schools seems to follow rent extraction purposes rather than educational goals.

为了提高教育质量，可以直接奖励表现，也可以引入择校、私人提供和要求补贴等措施。智利的学券计划结合了两种方法：与出勤相关的补贴有利于学校选择，并为学校全年提高出勤率创造激励。然而，由于监管不完善，机构可能会通过操纵绩效指标来做出反应。通过分析审计数据，我们发现有证据表明，很大一部分智利学校（包括公立学校）高估了出勤率，在营利性和成绩不佳的机构中这种情况更为普遍。支出数据表明，营利性学校之间的操纵似乎是为了榨取租金，而不是教育目标。