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 ...

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) ...

We show that local politicians’ probability of being employed by a municipality increases when they have a strong party connection to its mayor. Using a regression discontinuity design, we compare the employment outcomes ...

In this paper, we study how parents react to a widely-used school policy that puts some children at a learning disadvantage. Specifically, we first document that, in line with findings in other countries, younger children ...

In this paper, I use a unique empirical setting that allows me to compare the performance of teachers hired in a discretionary process led by the teachers’ union in Mexico with the performance of those hired on the basis ...

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 ...

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 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 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 ...