Compulsory schooling increases average level of education in a country and provides other benefits, its effect on geographical distribution is, however, not obvious. We explore the effect of a sudden change in compulsory schooling in Turkey, that increased mandatory years of schooling from five...

For the last decades, regions in the United States have been diverging. More skill-intensive regions have experienced a higher wage and skill premium growth and had become even more skill-intensive. In this paper, I show that this may be driven in part by trade with China. One of the main...

This paper analyzes the contribution of import competition to the regional divergence among US metropolitan areas over recent decades. I document that the sharp rise in imports of Chinese manufacturing goods had a significant effect on the spatial skill polarization and the divergence of college...

In the us, test score gaps by socioeconomic status and race increase with city size. This paper examines to what extent residential sorting on school quality can explain this fact. We combine 15 years of data on public elementary school students in North Carolina with geocoded school locations...

In the us, test score gaps by socioeconomic status and race increase with city size. This paper examines to what extent residential sorting on school quality can explain this fact. We combine 15 years of data on public elementary school students in North Carolina with geocoded school locations...

Disruptions in family life can take many forms, but all have the potential to impact student learning. With school administrative data matched to birth records, I estimate the effect of unexpected changes in the home environment, or family shocks, on achievement. Identification comes from...

This paper estimates peer effects in a university context where students are randomly assigned to sections. While students benefit from better peers on average, low-achieving students are harmed by high-achieving peers. Analyzing students' course evaluations suggests that peer effects are driven...

We analyze the impact of expansion of higher education on student outcomes in the context of competition among colleges which differentiate themselves horizontally by setting curricular standards. When public or economic pressures compel less selective colleges to lower their curricular demands,...

We design and implement 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 shrinks...

We study how a large household windfall affects sorting of relatively disadvantaged youth over high school tracks by exploiting the discontinuity in the assignment of a welfare program in Mexico. The in-cash transfer is found to significantly increase the probability of selecting vocational...