The Impact of Direct Democracy on Society - Universität St.Gallen

– 227 –identifying the budgetary channel as the transmission channel. As in the reduced form, aperformance enhancing impact <strong>of</strong> peer performance and a test score lowering influence <strong>of</strong>foreign peers can be observed. Again, the ratio <strong>of</strong> female peers does not appear to be adecisive factor.Among the cantonal controls, the share <strong>of</strong> Protestants and <strong>of</strong> high school graduates stillreveals an achievement enhancing impact, whereas the share <strong>of</strong> poor persons has becomeinsignificant compared to the reduced model. As in the case for reading, the latter resultindicates that the detrimental impact <strong>of</strong> poor persons occurs through the financial-budgetarychannel <strong>of</strong> school expenses. This influence <strong>of</strong> the highly educated might indicate a preferencefor a better education in mathematics at the cantonal level. As in the case for reading, theinclusion <strong>of</strong> revenue-driven input variables makes the effect <strong>of</strong> the population disappear. <strong>The</strong>remaining cantonal predictors do not appear to be influential. As regards the revenue-driveninput variables, influences similar to those obtained for reading are found; most particularly,the share <strong>of</strong> mathematics teachers with a tertiary education appears to have a test score raisinginfluence on students, and the coefficient <strong>of</strong> the ratio <strong>of</strong> the tertiary staff in the teachingpersonnel is also positive and close to statistical significance for the average student.Moreover, no remaining input controls, including the equipment <strong>of</strong> schools with PCs, are <strong>of</strong>importance for the average student in mathematics. Again, the findings in the quantileregressions are very similar to those for the OLS. For more detailed estimation results, see theAppendix on mathematics.Reflection on the findings for mathematics – particularly a comparison <strong>of</strong> the results for bothforms <strong>of</strong> the model – leads to the conclusion that the insignificance <strong>of</strong> the coefficient <strong>of</strong> directdemocracy in the reduced form must have been caused by the mutual cancellation <strong>of</strong> apositive (direct) influence and an assumedly negative one induced by the revenue-driven inputfactors. Hence, in the case <strong>of</strong> mathematics, the results reflect both a performance dampeningindirect impact <strong>of</strong> direct democracy through the budget and an achievement raising directimpact. This latter finding could indicate that in more directly democratic cantons, theteaching <strong>of</strong> mathematics is favored. A second conclusion might be that fewer financial meansat the subfederal level do matter for student performance. As the impact <strong>of</strong> the directlegislation changes through control <strong>of</strong> these inputs, which are also influenced by thisinstitution, these inputs must play a decisive role in academic achievement.