We exploit data on the future earnings students at high school completion expect to receive with and without a college education, together with information on learning achievement and college outcomes, to study the benefits ...

We show that bureaucrats can exploit discretion in hiring decisions to engage in forms of favoritism that hinder organizational performance. We do this in the context of the Mexican federal judiciary. The arrival of a judge ...

This paper studies how the admission of a student to an elite school changes the schooling outcomes of younger cohorts in the student’s origin school in Peru. Using a sharp regression discontinuity design, the analysis ...

El cierre sin precedentes de las escuelas en casi todos los países y el efecto de la pandemia del COVID-19 en los ingresos y el bienestar de las familias han afectado negativamente los aprendizajes y la trayectoria educativa ...

We construct two longitudinal datasets that record students’ test scores in a national standardized exam in Mexico and track students from the end of primary (Grade 6) to the end of lower (Grade 9) and upper (Grade 12) ...

This paper studies the effect of a civil service reform on the skills profile of new teachers in Mexico. The reform mandated the use of rule-based recruitment over discretionary hiring. Our results show that the reform ...

This paper documents a novel stylized fact: many teachers in Latin America have very low levels of cognitive skills. This skills deficit is the result of both low levels of competencies among the population and a gap between ...

I use detailed applications data to document a case in which, contrary to prevailing concerns, increasing school stratification by ability co-existed with stable stratification by family income: Mexico City public high ...