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

Abstract

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.

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Reference

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 May 2023.