Trade-Offs of Attending Better Schools
Achievement, Self-Perceptions and Educational Trajectories
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9704950 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Raissa Fabregas (0000-0001-7732-911X, University of Texas at Austin , USA, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 133 |
| Issue | 655 |
| Pages | 2709-2737 |
| Publication date | 2023-09-11 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Economic Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-0133 • E-ISSN: 1468-0297 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ej/uead042 |
| OpenAlex | W4380574510 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 50 |
This paper estimates the impacts of attending better middle schools on the test scores, on-time graduation, self-reported socio-emotional skills, aspirations and high school track choices of marginally admitted students. A regression discontinuity design comparing students just above and below the admission threshold to higher-achieving middle schools in Mexico shows some modest gains on externally graded tests, but adverse effects on grade point average and on-time graduation. By the end of middle school, marginally admitted students feel academically inferior to their peers, obtain worse scores on measures of conscientiousness, and are more likely to shift their aspirations and subsequent schooling choices from academic to vocational programmes. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that unfavourable peer comparisons, stemming from direct observation or subjective teacher assessments, can be sufficiently important to affect students’ educational trajectories
Academic achievement · Affect (linguistics · Big Five personality traits · Conscientiousness · Demographic economics · Economics · Graduation (instrument · Mathematics education · Pedagogy · Perception · Personality · Regression discontinuity design · Test (biology · Vocational education · Higher Education Research Studies · Medicine · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare · Psychology · School Choice and Performance · Social Psychology
Going to a Better School
Implicit Stereotypes
Heterogeneity in Human Capital Investments
What do Workplace Wellness Programs do? Evidence from the Illinois Workplace Wellness Study
Saving Babies? Revisiting the effect of very low birth weight classification
Educational Production
Generalizations about Using Value-Added Measures of Teacher Quality
On the origins of gender gaps in human capital
Training, Wages, and Sample Selection
Test Scores, Subjective Assessment, and Stereotyping of Ethnic Minorities
The Role of Cognitive Skills in Economic Development
The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market
Personality Psychology and Economics
Promise and Paradox
The big-fish-little-pond effect on academic self-concept.
Multiple Inference and Gender Differences in the Effects of Early Intervention
Robust Nonparametric Confidence Intervals for Regression-Discontinuity Designs
The Cost of Grade Retention
Effects of Peers and Rank on Cognition, Preferences, and Personality
The Medium-Term Impacts of High-Achieving Charter Schools
The Path to College Education
Do Students Benefit from Attending Better Schools? Evidence from Rule‐based Student Assignments in Trinidad and Tobago
Grit
Determinants of student self-concept
Fostering and Measuring Skills
The Winner-Take-All High School
The Campus as a Frog Pond
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |