Abstract
This paper explores an information intervention designed and implemented within a school assignment mechanism in Mexico City. Through a randomized experiment, we show that providing a subset of applicants with feedback about their academic performance can enhance sorting by skill across high school tracks. We embed the experimental variation into an empirical model of schooling choice and outcomes to assess the impact of the intervention for the overall population of applicants. Feedback provision is shown to increase the eciency of the student-school allocation, while congestion externalities are detrimental for the equity of downstream education outcomes.
Keywords
Information; Subjective expectations; Beliefs updating; Biased beliefs; School choice; Discrete choice models; Control function; Stable matching;
JEL codes
- D83: Search • Learning • Information and Knowledge • Communication • Belief
- I21: Analysis of Education
- I24: Education and Inequality
- J24: Human Capital • Skills • Occupational Choice • Labor Productivity
Replaces
Matteo Bobba, Veronica Frisancho, and Marco Pariguana, “Perceived Ability and School Choices: Experimental Evidence and Scale-up Effects”, TSE Working Paper, n. 16-660, June 2016, revised March 2026.
Reference
Matteo Bobba, Veronica Frisancho, and Marco Pariguana, “Perceived Ability and School Choices: Experimental Evidence and Scale-up Effects”, Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics, 2026, forthcoming.
Published in
Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics, 2026, forthcoming