This study examines the gendered effects of early and sustained exposure to high-performing peers on female educational trajectories. Exploiting random allocation to classrooms within middle schools, we measure the effect of male and female high performers on girls' high school placement...

This paper examines the effects of skill advantages at age six on different types of parental investments, and long-run outcomes up to age 27. We exploit exogenous variation in skills due to school entry rules, combining 20 years of Chilean administrative records with a regression discontinuity...

How much do schools differ in their effectiveness? Recent studies that seek to answer this question account for student sorting using random assignment generated by central allocation mechanisms or oversubscribed schools. However, the resulting estimates, while causal, may also reflect peer...

This paper studies a model where student effort and talent interact with parental and teachers' investments, as well as with school system resources. The model is rich, yet sufficiently stylized to provide novel implications. It can show, for example, that an improvement in parental outside...

This paper designs and implements a field experiment that provides students from less advantaged backgrounds with individualized feedback on academic performance during the transition from middle to high school. The intervention reduces the gap between expected and actual performance, as well as...

Education is a crucial asset for a country's economic prospects and for its inhabitants. In addition to its direct impact on growth via the accumulation of human capital, it is a critical ingredient in producing an informed citizenry, enhancing their ability to obtain and exert human and...

Covering the full population of applicants to the Jamaican Conditional Cash Transfer Program (PATH), we explore whether receiving PATH since childhood altered the academic gains from attending a more preferred public secondary school. To uncover causal associations, we implement a double...

Covering the full population of applicants to the Jamaican Conditional Cash Transfer Program (PATH), we explore whether receiving PATH benefits alters the academic returns to subsequently attending a more preferred public secondary school. To uncover causal associations, we exploit exogenous...