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In the first chapter, we study the effects of changing the priority structure in the centralized high school admission system in Mexico City. Academically elite schools experience excess demand, while admission priorities are based on a standardized admission exam. The system ignores other skill measures such as grade point average (GPA), which may better capture non-cognitive skills that are important for later education and life-cycle outcomes. Using a Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD), we first show that marginal admission to an elite school decreases the graduation probability for students with below-median GPA and increases it for students with above-median GPA. Guided by this evidence, we then study the effects of a counterfactual admission policy wherein elite schools use a priority index that flexibly combines information on both the admission exam and the middle school overall GPA. Our counterfactual results show that more females and lower-income students would be admitted to elite schools, and the graduation rate at elite schools would increase by six percentage points. Overall, our findings show that including the information contained in GPA to define a priority structure improves equity of access, decreases mismatch, and increases graduation. The second chapter uses five years (2005-2009) of administrative data on the centralized high school admission system in Mexico City to study whether the academic effects of being marginally admitted to an elite science school depend on the year of admission. I show that the effect on mathematics test scores at the end of high school decreases each year, starting positive and statistically significant in 2005 and ending close to zero and not significant by 2009. I propose two mechanisms to explain this trend. The first is related to changes over time in the composition of marginally admitted and rejected students combined with heterogeneity in the effect of marginal admission. The second considers changes over time in the production functions of elite and non-elite schools. Together, these results highlight the limited external validity of estimates obtained at a single point in time as they may be systematically influenced by time-varying changes in the educational context. The third chapter studies students’ choice between academic and non-academic schools when they are uncertain about their academic skills. We implement a Randomized Control Trial (RCT) and find that providing students in Mexico City with more accurate information about their academic skills creates a better alignment between students’ skills and the type of schools they attend. This better alignment increases on-time graduation.

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 schools as the most preferred options vis-a-vis other more academically oriented education modalities. We find support for the hypothe- sis that the receipt of unearned income allows some students to choose a schooling career with higher out-of-pocket expenditures and higher expected returns. The ob- served change in stated preferences across tracks effectively alters school placement, and bears a positive effect on later education outcomes.

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 schools as the most preferred options vis-a-vis other more academically oriented education modalities. We find support for the hypothesis that the transfer relaxes the liquidity constraints preventing relatively poor students from choosing a schooling career with higher out-of-pocket expenditures and higher expected returns. The observed change in stated preferences across tracks effectively alters school placement, and bears a positive effect on on-time graduation.

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.

Parents and students from different socioeconomic backgrounds value differently school characteristics, but the reasons behind this preference heterogeneity are not well understood. In the context of the centralized school assignment system in Mexico City, this study analyzes how a large household income shock affects choices over high school tracks exploiting the discontinuity in the assignment of the welfare program Oportunidades. The income shock significantly increases the probability of choosing the vocational track vis-a-vis the other more academic-oriented tracks. The findings suggest that the transfer relaxes the financial constraints that prevent relatively low-ability students from choosing the schooling option with higher labor market returns.

Parents and students from different socioeconomic backgrounds value differently school characteristics, but the reasons behind this preference heterogeneity are not well understood. In the context of the centralized school assignment system in Mexico City, this study analyzes how a large household income shock affects choices over high school tracks exploiting the discontinuity in the assignment of the welfare program Oportunidades. The income shock significantly increases the probability of choosing the vocational track vis-a-vis the other more academic-oriented tracks. The findings suggest that the transfer relaxes the financial constraints that prevent relatively low-ability students from choosing the schooling option with higher labor market returns.

En el marco del debate actual sobre la reforma del servicio civil, la estimación de la brecha de ingresos entre trabajadores públicos y privados (asalariados e independientes) para el caso peruano se utiliza una estrategia empírica para evaluar si el hecho de transitar del sector público al sector privado genera una pérdida de ingresos en comparación con el escenario de permanecer en el sector público. Además, para capturar si el diferencial de ingresos entre trabajadores con características similares varía según el nivel educativo, se dividió a los trabajadores con secundaria completa de aquellos con nivel educativo de superior completa y más. Utilizando métodos de emparejamiento y doble diferencia, se encuentra que para el grupo bajo análisis —los trabajadores públicos que transitaron al sector privado (grupo de tratamiento) y los que se mantuvieron como trabajadores públicos (grupo de control)—, hay una prima por trabajar en el sector público y que esta disminuye con el nivel educativo alcanzado. Este resultado se mantiene, aunque la prima se reduce, cuando además se consideran los ingresos no monetarios (p.ej. uniformes) y los ingresos extraordinarios (p.ej. utilidades, gratificaciones) como parte de los ingresos.