The potential efficacy of centralized school choice systems in reducing inequalities in access to high-quality schools may be hindered by informational frictions. In this paper, we experimentally evaluate a low-cost information intervention in the centralized school admission system (Matrícula...

In this paper, we aim to understand some of the mechanisms behind the low impact of a Chilean educational reform on socioeconomic integration within the school system. We focus on pre-kindergarden (pre-K) admissions, which account for the highest volume of applications since all students (except...

Due to an unprecedented rise in demand, in 2020 the Peruvian Ministry of Education implemented a centralized assignment mechanism that allowed thousands of students at various levels of education to move from the private to the public sector. In this paper, we empirically explore the...

Education systems seeking to improve outcomes must attract, develop, and retain highly effective teachers. A critical challenge is making the teaching profession appealing to talented youth. This paper presents evidence from an experiment in Peru, where we provided high school seniors with...

Do resource-extraction booms crowd out postsecondary education? We explore this question by examining the higher education-related decisions of Chilean high school graduates during the 2000s commodities boom. We find mineral extraction increases a person's likelihood of enrolling in...

Using a rich set of administrative data, we study the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the transition to tertiary education for students with disabilities in Chile. Enrollment rates in primary and secondary education in Chile differ by less than 2 percentage points for students with or without...

Empirical results in economics often stem from success in controlled experimental settings, but often fail when scaled up. This study presents a behavioral intervention and a scalable equivalent aimed at reducing teacher shortages by motivating high school students to pursue an education degree....

This paper investigates the long-term impact on earnings of attending a tuition-free, top-quality university in Brazil. We identify the causal effect through a sharp discontinuity in an admission process based on test scores. If admitted, low-income students are found to increase their earnings...

This paper provides some evidence that repeat taking of competitive examsmay reduce the impact of background disadvantages on educational outcomes. Using administrative data on the university entrance exam in Turkey, the paper estimates cumulative learning between the first and the nth attempt...

Schools that provide higher education often belong to either a merit-based selective system or an open-access less selective system. This paper presents the results of a field experiment that provided Grade 12 students in Chile with tailored information about financial aid and average earnings...