Awarded Annual Best Paper Prize by the Columbia Committee on the Economics of Education
2. Long-term effects of grants and loans for vocational education
Journal of Public Economics
3. Walking in your footsteps: Sibling spillovers in higher education choices
with Juan Matta
Economics of Education Review
Awarded Dean's Grant for Student Research
1. Joining the Old Boys' Club: Women's Returns to Majoring in Technology and Engineering (R&R AEJ: Applied)
with Juan Matta and Ana María Montoya
IDB Funding: Boosting growth and economic development by reducing gender gaps in the countries of the southern cone
We investigate the economic consequences for women of majoring in Technology and Engineering (TE). We leverage discontinuities built in Chile’s centralized college admission system to identify the causal effects of majoring in different fields on graduation, labor market outcomes, marriage, and fertility. We find that majoring in TE does not increase earnings for women, even when the counterfactual is the low-paying fields of Humanities, Arts and Social Science (HASS). In contrast, we find large positive returns to TE vs. HASS for men. These results are likely explained by gendered occupational sorting among TE graduates and by high childbearing costs in TE.2. The Only Women in the Room: When College Peers Matter the Most (Submitted)
with Juan Matta and Ana María Montoya
IDB Funding: Boosting growth and economic development by reducing gender gaps in the countries of the southern cone
This paper studies the long-term effects of college peers. To address peer endogeneity we exploit variation in peer characteristics within programs and across cohorts. Combining administrative educational records with data on labor earnings, marriage, and fertility, we find that high-ability female peers (as measured by math college admission test scores) positively impact women’s graduation rates, earnings, and marriage market outcomes, while decreasing fertility rates. Conversely, high-ability male peers exert a stronger and contrasting influence. They significantly decrease women’s graduation rates and earnings while increasing fertility rates. Our results are driven by women pursuing STEM fields, who are significantly disadvantaged by having high-ability male peers. In contrast, we find no impact of peer ability on men’s outcomes in STEM or non-STEM fields.with Fernanda Ramirez-Espinoza and Román Andrés Zarate
This paper estimates the impact of violence perpetrated by peers and school staff on student victims. Leveraging unique administrative data from Chile that links reports of school violence to individual educational records, we address longstanding data limitations that have constrained empirical research on this issue. Using a matched difference-in-differences design, we find that exposure to school violence has persistent negative effects: absenteeism increases by 46–64%, grade retention rates double, and both grades and test scores decline significantly, with impacts lasting up to four years. In the longer term, victims are substantially less likely to graduate from high school or enroll in university, with violence perpetrated by adults having more severe consequences than peer violence. Complementary survey evidence reveals that reported incidents are associated with increased perceptions of violence and discrimination, as well as decreases in school belonging and teacher expectations. While these psychological and perceptual effects tend to fade after one year, the adverse educational consequences persist, underscoring how brief traumatic experiences can lead to long-lasting educational disadvantages.Master Thesis