Self-Perceptions about Academic Achievement: Evidence from Mexico City

Résumé

A growing body of evidence suggests that people exhibit large biases whenprocessing information about themselves, but less is known about the under-lying inference process. This paper studies belief updating patterns regardingacademic ability in a large sample of students transitioning from middle to highschool in Mexico City. The analysis takes advantage of rich and longitudinal dataon subjective beliefs together with randomized feedback about individual perfor-mance on an achievement test. On average, the performance feedback reducesthe relative role of priors on posteriors and shifts substantial probability masstoward the signal. Further evidence reveals that males and high-socioeconomicstatus students tend to process new information on their own ability more effec-tively.

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Codes JEL

Remplace

Matteo Bobba et Veronica Frisancho, « Self-Perceptions about Academic Achievement: Evidence from Mexico City », TSE Working Paper, n° 20-1070, janvier 2020, révision juin 2020.

Référence

Matteo Bobba et Veronica Frisancho, « Self-Perceptions about Academic Achievement: Evidence from Mexico City », Journal of Econometrics, vol. 231, n° 1, novembre 2022, p. 58–73.