Document de travail

Perceived Ability and School Choices: Experimental Evidence and Scale-up Effects

Matteo Bobba, Veronica Frisancho et Marco Pariguana

Résumé

This paper studies an information intervention designed and implemented in the context of a school assignment mechanism in Mexico City. We find that providing students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds with feedback about their academic performance contributes to placing applicants in schools that better fit their skills, allowing them to gradu-ate on time from high school at a higher rate. We also quantify the effect of a counterfactual and yet feasible implementation of the information intervention at a much larger scale. Simula-tion results demonstrate substantial heterogeneity in the demand-side responses, which trigger sorting and displacement patterns within the assignment mechanism. The equilibrium effects of the intervention may possibly hinder the subsequent academic trajectories of high-achieving and socio-economically disadvantaged students.

Mots-clés

Information; Subjective expectations; Beliefs updating; Biased beliefs; School choice; Discrete choice models; Control function; Stable matching;

Codes JEL

  • D83: Search • Learning • Information and Knowledge • Communication • Belief
  • I21: Analysis of Education
  • I24: Education and Inequality
  • J24: Human Capital • Skills • Occupational Choice • Labor Productivity

Référence

Matteo Bobba, Veronica Frisancho et Marco Pariguana, « Perceived Ability and School Choices: Experimental Evidence and Scale-up Effects », TSE Working Paper, n° 16-660, juin 2016, révision mai 2023.

Voir aussi

Publié dans

TSE Working Paper, n° 16-660, juin 2016, révision mai 2023