Dante Contreras

contreras.dante@gmail.com

Dante Contreras holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California. He is Professor of Economics at the University of Chile and Director of the Center for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies (COES). Throughout his career, he has held several senior leadership and policy positions, including Executive Director at the World Bank, Vice President of the National Copper Corporation of Chile (CODELCO), officer at the United Nations Development Programme, and Director of the Department of Economics at the University of Chile.

He has also served as an advisor to a range of national and international institutions, including the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, the Ministry of Labor, the National Women’s Service, the Ministry of Social Development, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

His research focuses on the economics of education, inequality, and social mobility, with particular emphasis on how institutions, policies, and large-scale shocks shape human capital accumulation over the life cycle. His recent work examines high-stakes educational decisions, gender gaps and child penalties in the labor market, teacher incentives, returns to higher education and student debt, and the effects of social unrest and social identity on economic outcomes. His research combines large-scale administrative data with quasi-experimental methods and has been published in leading international journals such as the Journal of Labor Economics, Labour Economics, Economics and Human Biology, Social Networks, Journal of Development Economics, Economic of education Review and World Development.

Research Agenda

My research focuses on the economics of education, inequality, and social mobility, with particular emphasis on how institutional design and social and environmental shocks shape human capital accumulation over the life cycle. A central theme of my work is understanding how early-life conditions, school quality, and high-stakes selection mechanisms translate into persistent disparities in educational and labor market outcomes, especially in Latin America.

A second strand of my research examines the causal effects of policy interventions and large-scale shocks—including social unrest, climate extremes, migration, and education reforms—on learning, access to higher education, and intergenerational mobility. My work relies on large-scale administrative and longitudinal data and employs quasi-experimental methods such as difference-in-differences, regression discontinuity designs, and event-study approaches.

Selected Publications

Early maternity and paternity: Effects on educational trajectories  . Journal of Development Economics (2025)

Is private education worth it? Evidence from school-to-work transitions in Chile . Labour Economics (2024)

What makes elites more or less egalitarian? Variations in attitudes toward inequality within elites in Chile . Socio-Economic Review (2024)

The effects of mass migration on the academic performance of native students . Economics of Education Review (2022)

Labor market returns to student loans for university education . Journal of Labor Economics (2020)

Working Papers 

Bigger Than We Thought: Methodological Choices and the Magnitude of Child Penalties in Chile . Under review.

The Wage Impact of Revealed LGBT Community Participation: Evidence from Chile . Under review.

Getting Teachers Back to Study: Input-Based Teacher Incentives and Student Achievement . Revision requested, Journal of Labor Economics

College Major Choice, Payoffs, and Gender Gaps. Under review.