"Gendered Effects of Labels on Advanced Course Enrollment" Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2025
This paper investigates gender differences in how high school students react to standardized test performance labels regarding their advanced math and English enrollment decisions. Using a regression discontinuity design, I find that women labeled as not proficient in math are less likely to enroll in advanced math courses than their proficient-labeled peers. In English, the effect of labels on women's enrollment decisions is smaller and noisier. While, on average, men enroll in advanced classes at a lower rate than women, men's likelihood of enrollment is not impacted by the labels they receive, regardless of subject. These findings highlight unintended consequences of testing practices that affect human capital investment decisions differentially by gender, potentially contributing to the persistent underrepresentation of women in male-dominated fields.
"A (Dynamic) Investigation of Stereotypes, Belief-Updating, and Behavior" (with Katherine Coffman and Basit Zafar). Economic Inquiry, 2024
Using a controlled experiment, we study the dynamic effects of feedback on decision‐making across verbal skills and math. Before feedback, men are more optimistic about their performance and more willing to compete than women, especially in math. While feedback shifts individuals' beliefs and behavior, we see substantial persistence of gender gaps 1 week later. This is particularly true among individuals who receive negative feedback. Our results are not well-explained by motivated reasoning; in fact, negative feedback is more likely to be recalled than positive feedback. Overall, our results highlight the challenges involved in overcoming gender gaps in dynamic settings.
“The Impact of COVID-19 on Student Experiences and Expectations: Evidence from a Survey” (with Esteban Aucejo, Jacob French, and Basit Zafar). Journal of Public Economics, 2020
Press: The Chronicle of Higher Education, Market Watch, VoxEU
In order to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on higher education, we surveyed approximately 1500 students at one of the largest public institutions in the United States using an instrument designed to recover the causal impact of the pandemic on students' current and expected outcomes. Results show large negative effects across many dimensions. Due to COVID-19: 13% of students have delayed graduation, 40% have lost a job, internship, or job offer, and 29% expect to earn less at age 35. Moreover, these effects have been highly heterogeneous. One-quarter of students increased their study time by more than 4 hours per week due to COVID-19, while another quarter decreased their study time by more than 5 hours per week. This heterogeneity often followed existing socioeconomic divides. Lower-income students are 55% more likely than their higher-income peers to have delayed graduation due to COVID-19. Finally, we show that the economic and health-related shocks induced by COVID-19 vary systematically by socioeconomic factors and constitute key mediators in explaining the large (and heterogeneous) effects of the pandemic.
“Political Views & College Choices in a Polarized America” (with Riley Acton and Emily Cook) Annenberg Institute EdWorkingPaper No. 25-1280, IZA Discussion Paper No. 18099, & CESifo Working Paper No. 12113
Press: Inside Higher Ed, Decode Econ
We examine the role of students’ political views in shaping college enrollment decisions in the United States. We hypothesize that students derive utility from attending institutions aligned with their political identities, which could reinforce demographic and regional disparities in educational attainment and reduce ideological diversity on campuses. Using four decades of survey data on college freshmen, we document increasing political polarization in colleges’ student bodies, which is not fully explained by sorting along demographic, socioeconomic, or academic lines. To further explore these patterns, we conduct a series of survey-based choice experiments that quantify the value students place on political alignment relative to factors such as cost and proximity. We find that both liberal and conservative students prefer institutions with more like-minded peers and, especially, with fewer students from the opposite side of the political spectrum. The median student is willing to pay up to $2,617 (12.5%) more to attend a college where the share of students with opposing political views is 10 percentage points lower, suggesting that political identity plays a meaningful role in the college choice process.
"Gender, Grade Sensitivity, and Major Choice" (Reject & Resubmit JHR) Draft
It has been documented that the probability of women continuing their studies in or switching out of male-dominated fields --like STEM and business-- is more sensitive to their performance in relevant courses at the beginning of their college career relative to men. The reasons why women and men react differently to grades during college, and how this behavior impacts their major choices, are however not well understood. Using novel survey data with hypothetical major choice scenarios that exogenously vary different attributes, I estimate students' sensitivity to grades and find that women value an extra GPA point about $3,000 more than men. I find that anticipated discrimination in the labor market of male-dominated fields is important to understand this gender gap in grade sensitivity. I further provide evidence of the gender differences in beliefs about labor market discrimination in different fields. My results show that beliefs about gender discrimination in the labor market account for 48% of the gender gap in grade sensitivity. Understanding why talented women with the potential to succeed in male-dominated fields drop out because of less-than-stellar grades in an introductory class is important for closing the gender gap in these areas, improving the labor market outcomes of highly skilled women, and achieving an efficient allocation of resources across fields of study and occupations.
“Understanding Gaps in College Outcomes by First-Generation Status” with Esteban Aucejo, Jacob French, and Basit Zafar (Submitted) NBER Working Paper 34129
Information frictions significantly shape students' academic trajectories, but their differential impact across student backgrounds remains understudied. Using a novel panel survey capturing incoming students' subjective expectations and anonymized transcript data from Arizona State University, we first show that parental education strongly predicts educational success, even after controlling for demographics and measurable college preparation. First-generation students enter college less informed and with more uncertain beliefs, facing substantial challenges stemming from limited understanding and uncertainty about the higher education setting. A Bayesian expected utility maximization model demonstrates that higher uncertainty alone can sustain persistent achievement gaps. Empirically, students update their beliefs and make academic decisions consistent with the model’s predictions. Finally, leveraging a natural experiment involving a targeted first-year experience program for academically marginal students, we demonstrate that cost-effective interventions can successfully reduce knowledge frictions, improve retention, and encourage beneficial early major switching.
“The Labor Market Impact of K-11 vs. K-12” with Scott Abrahams (Submitted) Annenberg Institute EdWorkingPaper No. 25-1306
In 1945, the State of Louisiana extended formal secondary public education from 11 years to 12, requiring an additional year of schooling to graduate from high school. Since many students appeared to follow a diploma-based stopping rule for educational attainment, the transition meant that consecutive birth cohorts received different amounts of schooling. We use this natural experiment to evaluate the long-run labor market impact of having an 11-year versus a 12-year program. Using a difference-in-differences analysis comparing Louisiana to other states that already had a 12-year program, we find that the cohorts exposed to the 12-year program earn about $3,000 more in real annual labor income (13% above the mean), with gains concentrated among White individuals and males. The policy does not alter the likelihood of graduating from high school, though there is suggestive evidence that White students subsequently become about four percentage points more likely to complete at least one year of college.
“The Role of Teacher Private Information in Predicting Student Test Scores” with Esteban Aucejo and Ilkem Gok Karci.
“Gender Gap in Performance When Shaken and Stressed: Evidence from Korea’s College Scholastic Ability Test During Earthquakes” with Eunju Lee