Working Papers

Without abstracts | With abstracts

Integrating New York City Schools: The Role of Admission Criteria and Family Preferences
Updated January 2023 - Link to the Policy Brief - Revise and Resubmit at JPE

Abstract: Almost 70 years after Brown v. Board of Education, most urban school districts remain segregated by race and income. School admission criteria could perpetuate segregation by limiting access. This paper uses recent screened-school admission reforms and a structural model to gauge the contribution of school admission criteria to segregation in New York City middle schools. Two admission reforms that reduced academic screening decreased economic and racial segregation, while prompting some White and high-income students to leave the traditional public school sector. These admission reforms also appear to have changed application behavior in a manner reinforcing their desegregating effects. I use a model of school demand that allows for strategic application behavior to predict the consequences of hypothetical city-wide admission reforms. The resulting estimates suggest that removing academic screening only modestly reduces school segregation. In contrast, dropping admission criteria based on geographic proximity reduces segregation markedly. On balance, only about half of NYC middle school segregation is due to school admission criteria, with the rest due to family preferences and residential sorting.

Can Selective School Admission Reforms Increase Student Achievement?
Updated May 2022

Abstract: The recent surge in admission reforms across selective US schools has been a source of much debate. The achievement consequences of these reforms hinge on which students benefit from attending these schools. I show that Boston exam schools have heterogeneous effects on achievement, driven primarily by the quality of applicants’ non-exam school alternatives rather than their demographic characteristics. Admission policies prioritizing students with weaker schooling alternatives thus have more potential to increase academic achievement than policies targeting specific demographic groups. Simulations of alternative admission criteria suggest that schemes reserving seats for such students are likely to yield the largest gains.

Still Worth the Trip? School Busing Effects in Boston and New York  (with Joshua Angrist, Guthrie Gray-Lobe and Parag Pathak)
Updated December 2022 - Link to the Policy Brief

Abstract: School assignment in Boston and New York City came to national attention in the wake of court-mandated desegregation in the 1960s and 1970s. Today, district-wide choice allows Boston and New York students to enroll far from home, perhaps enhancing integration. Urban school transportation is costly, however, and has unclear integration and education consequences. We estimate the causal effects of non-neighborhood school assignment and school travel on integration and achievement using an identification strategy that exploits partly-random assignment variation arising from the Boston and New York City school matches. Instrumental variables estimates suggest distance and travel boost integration for those who choose to travel, but have little or no effect on test scores and college attendance. We argue that small effects on educational outcomes reflect modest effects of distance and travel on school quality, as measured by value-added.

Overcoming Racial Gaps in School Preferences: The Effect of Peer Diversity on School Choice (with Viola Corradini)
Updated November 2024 - Link to the Policy Brief

Abstract: Differences in school choice by race contribute to school segregation and unequal access to effective schools. Conditional on test score and district of residence, Black and Hispanic families consistently choose schools with fewer white and Asian students, lower average achievement, and lower value-added. This paper combines unique survey data and administrative data from New York City to identify the determinants of racial disparities in school choice and shows that attending a more diverse middle school can mitigate racial choice gaps. Instrumental variable estimates show that middle school students exposed to more diverse peers apply to and enroll in high schools that are also more diverse. These effects particularly benefit Black and Hispanic students who, as a result, enroll in higher value-added high schools. A post-application survey of guardians of high school applicants suggests that most cross-race differences in choice stem from information gaps and homophily in preferences for school demographics. The survey results also reveal that exposure to diverse middle school peers reduces racial differences in choices by addressing these underlying determinants: it increases preferences for peer diversity and broadens the range of known school options.

Equilibrium Effects of Neighborhood Schools (with Raymond Han)

Updated January 2025

Abstract: Many public school districts allow families to enroll in schools outside their neighborhood. At the cost of higher transportation spending, choice programs aim to decouple educational opportunity from residential geography. This paper evaluates the impact of a return to neighborhood-based assignment following Seattle's re-introduction of neighborhood schools in 2010. We quantify the aggregate and distributional consequences of neighborhood assignment using an equilibrium model of joint residential and enrollment choices. Residential relocation responses limit the welfare costs of neighborhood assignment, reducing aggregate losses by roughly half. Lower housing costs fully offset welfare losses from restricted choice for low-income renters. Neighborhood assignment does not increase racial segregation or reduce the quality of schools attended by low-income families.

School Choice Under Uncertainty: Search Cost and Disappointment Aversion (with Viola Corradini)

Preliminary draft available upon request

Abstract: In this paper, we study how families make school search and application decisions when admission to schools is uncertain. We introduce a new tool on the NYC school application website that displays personalized admission probabilities to families. Using detailed data from the city’s school search website, families’ application choices, and a post-application survey, we examine the impact of this tool on families’ search behavior and application decisions. We leverage randomness in admission outcomes to isolate the causal effect of having a higher probability of admission to a given school. We find that families redirect their search effort toward schools for which they have a higher chance of admission, and in some cases consider schools they would not otherwise have applied to. Conditional on knowing a school, families are also less likely to apply to a school when their admission probability is lower. This avoidance behavior is more consistent with disappointment aversion than with search costs. These behavioral responses point to a hidden cost of providing families with information about their admission chances, which may have unintended consequences—particularly given imperfect understanding of probabilities.

Work in Progress