Is there a crowding-out effect between school expenditure and mother's child care time?

The effect of a change in school expenditure decisions on the amount of tim e mothers devote to child care is examined. The results demonstrate that sc hool expenditure is important in determining mother's child care time. Furt hermore, empirical study Shows that there is a crowding-out effect between school expenditure and mother's child care time in the lesser-educated fami lies. This finding implies that existing studies have overestimated the tru e effect of school expenditure on student performance, because they have ig nored this crowding-out effect. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights r eserved. JEL classification: I21.