Published Papers:
The Marginal Returns to Distance Education: Evidence from Mexico’s Telesecundarias, with Gabrielle Vasey. 2024. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 16(1): 253-85.
Abstract: This paper analyzes a large-scale and long-running distance education program in Mexico. We estimate marginal treatment effects (MTEs) for learning in math and Spanish in telesecundarias relative to traditional Mexican secondary schools using an empirical framework that allows for unobserved sorting on gains. The estimated MTEs reveal that school choice is not random and that the average student experiences significant improvements in both math and Spanish after just one year of attendance in telesecundarias. We find that the existing policy reduces educational inequality, and our policy-relevant treatment effects show that expanding telesecundarias would yield significant improvements in academic performance.
Working Papers:
The Heterogeneous Effects of Changing SAT Requirements in Admissions: An Equilibrium Evaluation, R & R at Journal of Political Economy
Abstract: Many universities are reducing emphasis on standardized exam scores in admissions out of concern that the exams limit college access for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. This paper analyzes how such a policy change would affect enrollment patterns and graduation rates at four-year colleges in the United States. To do so, I build an equilibrium model in which colleges rebalance their admissions criteria towards other measurements of students' human capital in the absence of standardized exam scores. The model allows high school students' application decisions and human capital investments to respond endogenously to the admissions policy, while colleges adjust admissions thresholds to maximize their objectives. I estimate the model using data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002. I find that banning the SAT causes a small increase in college attendance for low-income students but has a negligible effect on the enrollment of under-represented minority (URM) students, despite estimating that many universities have substantial preferences for diversity. The reason for this result is that endogenous human capital investment and equilibrium responses by capacity-constrained colleges completely offset the diversifying effects of relying more on grades and allowing non SAT-takers to apply to college. Elite colleges are worse off after banning the SAT, as they enroll students with lower skills and see graduation rates drop by 3 pp, while completion rates rise at less selective schools. A separate policy that requires all students to take the exam raises college completion for URMs by 1.8 pp by helping schools to identify stronger students.
Welfare, Workfare, and Labor Supply: A Unified Evaluation, with Francesco Agostinelli and Giuseppe Sorrenti, R & R at Journal of Econometrics
Abstract: We analyze the extent to which labor supply responds to incentives created by social programs in the United States. We find evidence that the incentive and disincentive effects of the EITC and welfare programs on hours worked among single mothers are more extensive than previously found in the literature. We also show that the difference-in-differences design, frequently adopted in the existing literature, fails to identify a meaningful treatment parameter in the context of the welfare-to-workfare transition in the 1990s. Finally, we use our quasi-experimental estimates to identify a structural model of labor supply with multiple tax and transfer programs. Model counterfactuals show that the EITC’s effect on labor supply depends on the regime of taxes and welfare system in place.
Learning Through Repetition? A Dynamic Evaluation of Grade Retention in Portugal, with Hugo Reis and Petra Todd, Updated version coming soon
Abstract: High grade retention rates are a matter of worldwide debate. Although some students learn more with extended school time, others may get discouraged and drop out. This paper develops and implements a dynamic modeling approach for estimating retention effects in Portuguese high schools where over 40% of students were retained. The estimated model is used to simulate academic achievement under existing and alternative high school retention policies. Results show that grade retention raises test scores but also increases dropout for some students. Because retention pits cognitive gains at the expensive of reduced educational attainment for some and delayed labor market entry for others, we solve for the optimal policy that maximizes lifetime earnings. This exercise reveals that retention rates in Portugal are inefficiently high.
Heterogeneity and Endogenous Compliance: Implications for Scaling Class Size Interventions, with Karun Adusumilli and Francesco Agostinelli
Abstract: This paper examines the scalability of the results from the Tennessee Student-Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) Project, a prominent educational experiment. We explore how the misalignment between the experimental design and the econometric model affects researchers' ability to learn about the intervention's scalability. We document heterogeneity in compliance with class-size reduction that is more extensive than previously acknowledged and discuss its consequences for the evaluation of the experiment. Guided by this finding, we implement a new econometric framework incorporating heterogeneous treatment effects and endogenous class size determination. We find that the effect of class size on test scores differs considerably across schools, with only a small fraction of schools having significant benefits from reduced class sizes. We discuss the challenges this poses for the intervention's scalability and conclude by analyzing targeted class-size interventions.