We study whether reallocating existing teachers across schools within a district can increase student achievement, and what policies would help achieve these gains. Using a model of multi-dimensional value-added, we find meaningful achievement gains from reallocating teachers within a district....

In several countries, students who fail end-of-high-school high-stakes exams are faced with the choice of retaking them or forgoing postsecondary education. We explore exogenous variation generated by a 2006 policy that imposed a performance threshold for admission into postsecondary education...

Understanding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education requires a solid grasp of the impact of student autonomy on learning. In this paper, we estimate the effect of an increased autonomy policy for higher-performing students on short- and longer-term school outcomes. We exploit an...

Why are females compared to males both more likely to have strong STEM-related performance and less likely to study STEM later on? We exploit random assignment of students to classrooms in Greece to identify the impact of comparative advantage in STEM relative to non-STEM subjects on STEM...

To reduce sugar intake in children, California regulates the provision of sugar-sweetened beverages and juice by child care facilities. The regulation may reduce children's consumption of sugary beverages in the short run and weaken their preferences for sugary drinks in the long run. Whether...

In a 1-year randomized controlled trial involving thousands of university students, we provide real-time private feedback on relative performance in a semester-long online assignment. Within this setup, our experimental design cleanly identifies the behavioral response to rank incentives (i.e.,...

Gender peer effects are potentially important for optimally organizing schools and neighborhoods. In this paper, we examine how the gender of classmates and neighbors affects a variety of high school outcomes and choice of university major. Given that students are assigned to schools based on...

How can individuals respond to their ordinal ranking when they are not aware of it? We present evidence on the effects and mechanisms of achievement rank effects in middle schools when ranks are salient to students and their parents. For identification, we rely on the random assignment of...

How much does your neighbor impact your test scores and career? In this paper, we examine how an observable characteristic of same-age neighbors - their gender - affects a variety of high school and university outcomes. We exploit randomness in the gender composition of local cohorts at birth...

Recent political instability in the Middle East has triggered one of the largest influxes of refugees into Europe. The different departure points along the Turkish coast generate exogenous variation in refugee arrivals across Greek islands. We construct a new dataset on the number and nature of...