Papers by Christopher Neilson
for helpful research assistance on this project. The views expressed herein are those of the auth... more for helpful research assistance on this project. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
Elite Universities and the Intergenerational Transmission of Human and Social Capital
Social Science Research Network, 2021
Biased Beliefs and Search in Education Markets in the Dominican Republic
AEA Randomized Controlled Trials, Jul 14, 2023
Quarterly Journal of Economics, Mar 8, 2022
Many school districts with centralized school choice adopt strategy-proof assignment mechanisms t... more Many school districts with centralized school choice adopt strategy-proof assignment mechanisms to relieve applicants from needing to strategize based on beliefs about their own admissions chances. This article shows that beliefs about admissions chances shape choice outcomes even when the assignment mechanism is strategy-proof by influencing how applicants search for schools and that "smart matching platforms" that provide live feedback on admissions chances help applicants search more effectively. Motivated by a model in which applicants engage in costly search for schools and overoptimism can lead to undersearch, we use data from a large-scale survey of choice participants in Chile to show that learning about schools is hard, beliefs about admissions chances guide the decision to stop searching, and applicants systematically underestimate nonplacement risk. We use RCT and RD research designs to evaluate scaled live feedback policies in the Chilean and New Haven choice systems. Twenty-two percent of applicants submitting applications where risks of nonplacement are high respond to warnings by adding schools to their lists, reducing nonplacement risk by 58% and increasing test score value added at the schools where they enroll by 0.10 standard deviations. Reducing the burden of school choice requires not just strategy-proofness inside the centralized system but also choice supports for the strategic decisions that inevitably remain outside of it.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Nov 1, 2011
The Effect of School Construction on Test Scores, School Enrollment, and Home Prices * This paper... more The Effect of School Construction on Test Scores, School Enrollment, and Home Prices * This paper provides new evidence on the effect of school construction projects on home prices, academic achievement, and public school enrollment. Taking advantage of the staggered implementation of a comprehensive school construction project in a poor urban district, we find that, by six years after building occupancy, $10,000 of per-student investment in school construction raised reading scores for elementary and middle school students by 0.027 standard deviations. For a student receiving the average treatment intensity this corresponds to a 0.21 standard deviation increase. School construction also raised home prices and public school enrollment in zoned neighborhoods.
The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of t... more The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2020
Family and social networks are widely believed to influence important life decisions but identify... more Family and social networks are widely believed to influence important life decisions but identifying their causal effects is notoriously difficult. Using admissions thresholds that directly affect older but not younger siblings' college options, we present evidence from the United States, Chile, Sweden and Croatia that older siblings' college and major choices can significantly influence their younger siblings' college and major choices. On the extensive margin, an older sibling's enrollment in a better college increases a younger sibling's probability of enrolling in college at all, especially for families with low predicted probabilities of enrollment. On the intensive margin, an older sibling's choice of college or major increases the probability that a younger sibling applies to and enrolls in that same college or major. Spillovers in major choice are stronger when older siblings enroll and succeed in more selective and higher-earning majors. The observed spillovers are not well-explained by price, income, proximity or legacy effects, but are most consistent with older siblings transmitting otherwise unavailable information about the college experience and its potential returns. The importance of such personally salient information may partly explain persistent differences in college-going rates by geography, income, and other determinants of social networks.
Economic Development and Cultural Change, 2016
Throughout much of the developing world, women tend to be disadvantaged in terms of job opportuni... more Throughout much of the developing world, women tend to be disadvantaged in terms of job opportunities and wages (Sen 1999). This is at least partially due to a significant gender gap in educational levels that remains large in many countries (World Development Report 2012), q1 although it is reversed in the United States for recent cohorts (Goldin, Katz, and Kuziemko 2006). This gap is also potentially due to difference in the types of human capital women and men acquire, even conditional on the same level of education. For example, there is substantial evidence of a strong correlation between math test scores, mathbased curriculum, mathematical majors in college, and future income earned, suggesting that observed differences in math skills across genders can explain part of the wage gap. 1 It is therefore important for research to address the differences in the development of math skills and the determinants of math-related specializations and the role played by myriad factors starting from early childhood, such as parental investments, preferences, expectations and innate ability. Understanding when and how differences between men and women begin to Giacomo De Giorgi acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (SEV-2011-0075
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2015
Using a large administrative data set from Chile, we find that, on average, boys perform better t... more Using a large administrative data set from Chile, we find that, on average, boys perform better than girls in mathematics. In this paper, we document several features of their relative performance. First, we note that the gender gap appears to increase with age (it doubles between fourth grade and eighth grade). Second, we test whether commonly proposed explanations such as parental background and investment in the child, unobserved ability, and classroom environment (including teacher gender) help explain a substantial portion of the gap. While none of these explanations help in explaining a large portion of the gender gap, we show that boys and girls differ significantly in perceptions about their own ability in math. Conditional on math scores, girls are much more likely to state that they dislike math, or find math difficult, compared to boys. We highlight differences in self-assessed ability as areas for future research that might lead to a better understanding of the gender gap in math.
We confirm the presence of a gender gap in mathematics across many low-and middle-income countrie... more We confirm the presence of a gender gap in mathematics across many low-and middle-income countries using detailed, comparable test score data. Examining micro level data on school performance linked to household demographics we note that first, the gender gap appears to increase with age. Indeed, the gap nearly doubles when comparing 4th grade and 8th grade test scores. Second, we test whether commonly proposed explanations such as parental background and investments, unobserved ability, and classroom environment (including teacher gender) explain a substantial portion of the gap. While none of these explanations help in substantially explaining the gender gap we observe, we show that boys and girls differ significantly in perceptions about their own ability in math, conditional on math test scores. Girls are much more likely to state that they dislike math, or find math difficult compared to boys. We highlight differences in self-assessed ability as areas for future research that might lead to a better understanding of the gender gap in math.
This paper examines the impact of fetal exposure to air pollution on 4th grade test scores in San... more This paper examines the impact of fetal exposure to air pollution on 4th grade test scores in Santiago, Chile. Data on air quality alerts and the use of siblings fixed effects estimation allow us to address several potentially important concerns about endogenous exposure to poor environmental quality. We find a strong negative effect from fetal exposure to carbon monoxide (CO) on math and language skills. Sibling fixed effects estimates are larger than OLS estimates, suggesting that controlling for unobserved, time invariant characteristics of families is important in this context. Consistent with theory, controlling for avoidance behavior modestly increases the magnitude of our estimates. We estimate that the 50% reduction in CO in Santiago between 1990 and 2005 increased lifetime earnings by approximately 100 million USD per birth cohort.
At least one co-author has disclosed a financial relationship of potential relevance for this res... more At least one co-author has disclosed a financial relationship of potential relevance for this research. Further information is available online at http://www.nber.org/papers/w20662.ack NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
American Economic Review, 2013
This paper studies the effect of improved early life health care on mortality and long-run academ... more This paper studies the effect of improved early life health care on mortality and long-run academic achievement in school. We use the idea that medical treatments often follow rules of thumb for assigning care to patients, such as the classification of Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW), which assigns infants special care at a specific birth weight cutoff. Using detailed administrative data on schooling and birth records from Chile and Norway, we establish that children who receive extra medical care at birth have lower mortality rates and higher test scores and grades in school. These gains are in the order of 0.15–0.22 standard deviations. (JEL I11, I12, I18, I21, J13, O15)
In this paper we examine the role of early childhood health interventions on mortality and long r... more In this paper we examine the role of early childhood health interventions on mortality and long run academic achievement in school. We exploit the idea that medical treatments often follow rules of thumb for assigning care to patients. In this instance we use the cutoff of Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW) that assigns infants below 1500 grams to extra treatments. Using detailed administrative data on schooling and vital statistics from Chile, we find that children who receive extra medical care at birth are more likely to survive and obtain scores that are between 0.1 and 0.2 SD higher in language and math. In addition we exploit the timing of Chile's national surfactant policy which was introduced in 1998 to provide evidence that this specific policy had a large impact on both mortality and academic achievement. Our results are robust to a wide variety of regression discontinuity design checks, including those which address empirical design concerns arising from irregular heaping of data which could occur in the case of birth weight data.
In this paper I use detailed administrative data to study the effects of targeted school vouchers... more In this paper I use detailed administrative data to study the effects of targeted school vouchers on the outcomes of poor children in Chile. A difference-indifferences analysis reveals that this reform raised the test scores of poor children significantly and closed the gap between these students and the rest of the population by one third. I estimate an empirical model of school choice to construct counter-factual simulations that allow me to isolate the different mechanisms through which this policy affected outcomes. In addition, the explicit modeling of schools' choice of price and quality allows for the analysis of how the policy changed the nature of competition among schools. The model estimates imply that the observed policy effect is due mostly to the increase in the quality of schools in poor neighborhoods and not to a resorting of students to better schools or the entry of new higher-quality schools. The introduction of targeted vouchers is shown to have effectively raised competition in poor neighborhoods, pushing schools to improve their academic quality.
NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerre... more NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Dec 1, 2019
This paper studies screening and recruiting policies that use pre-college academic achievement to... more This paper studies screening and recruiting policies that use pre-college academic achievement to restrict or incentivize entry to teacher-colleges. Using historical records of college entrance exam scores since 1967 and linking them to administrative data on the population of teachers in Chile, we first document a robust positive and concave relationship between pre-college academic achievement and several short and long run measures of teacher productivity. We then assess the effectiveness of two recent policies that used pre-college achievement to recruit or screen out students entering teacher-colleges. Using a regression discontinuity design based on the government's recruitment efforts, we evaluate the effectiveness of targeted scholarships at shifting career choices of high achieving students as well as the effect on the overall stock of teachers predicted effectiveness. We then assess a screening policy that forced teacher colleges to exclude below-average applicants. We quantify the policy effectiveness by retroactively simulating the rule and evaluating its success at screening out low performing teachers. Comparing this benchmark policy rule to a series of data-driven alternatives, we find that even simple screening policies can identify a significant portion of ex-post low performing teachers. In both policies studied, screening out low performing students is more effective than targeting recruitment efforts to only very high achieving students. Taken together, these findings suggest that the combination of better administrative data and flexible prediction methods can be used to implement practical screening and recruiting policies in some contexts and allow for better targeting of investments in future teachers.
Using data on student outcomes and school choice lotteries from a low-income urban school distric... more Using data on student outcomes and school choice lotteries from a low-income urban school district, we examine how school choice can affect student outcomes through increased motivation and personal effort as well as through improved school and peer inputs. First we use unique daily data on individual-level student absences and suspensions to show that lottery winners have significantly lower truancies after they learn about lottery outcomes but before they enroll in their new schools. The effects are largest for male students entering high school, whose truancy rates decline by 21% in the months after winning the lottery. We then examine the impact attending a chosen school has on student test score outcomes. We find substantial test score gains from attending a charter school and some evidence that choosing and attending a high value-added magnet school improves test scores as well. Our results contribute to current evidence that school choice programs can effectively raise test scores of participants. Our findings suggest that this may occur both through an immediate effect on student behavior and through the benefit of attending a higher-performing school.
Journal of Public Economics, Dec 1, 2014
The Effect of School Construction on Test Scores, School Enrollment, and Home Prices * This paper... more The Effect of School Construction on Test Scores, School Enrollment, and Home Prices * This paper provides new evidence on the effect of school construction projects on home prices, academic achievement, and public school enrollment. Taking advantage of the staggered implementation of a comprehensive school construction project in a poor urban district, we find that, by six years after building occupancy, $10,000 of per-student investment in school construction raised reading scores for elementary and middle school students by 0.027 standard deviations. For a student receiving the average treatment intensity this corresponds to a 0.21 standard deviation increase. School construction also raised home prices and public school enrollment in zoned neighborhoods.
Journal of Public Economics
This paper studies how market design choices exacerbate or mitigate preexisting inequalities when... more This paper studies how market design choices exacerbate or mitigate preexisting inequalities when market participants differ in their options outside of the centralized system. We introduce inequality in outside options in a canonical model of centralized school choice, and show that students always prefer switching from a strategy-proof mechanism to a manipulable mechanism if and only if they have an outside option. We then test the positive predictions of the model in a unique empirical setting where we can identify whether students have an outside option and where we observe applications under the Boston mechanism and a deferred acceptance mechanism. Consistent with our theoretical predictions, students with an outside option are more likely to list popular, highly-rated schools under the Boston mechanism, but this gap disappears after the switch to deferred acceptance. Manipulable mechanisms continue to be widely used in school settings. Our findings support a new equity-based argument in favor of strategy-proof approaches.
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Papers by Christopher Neilson