Full length articleDoes money affect children's educational outcomes? Evidence from Japan

Regarding children's academic achievement, previous studies have concluded that the home learning environment is the most important factor and that public educational investment has limited influence. However, recent studies have found that factors related to public educational investment can also contribute to improved academic achievement and these studies have resolved the statistical problems relating to endogeneity. Based on scores from the 2010 Japanese National Achievement Test, this study examines the data using the instrumental variables technique. Statistically significant results are obtained for the public school expenditure budgets per class, but not for the home learning environment.