This paper studies how academic fields shape students’ political attitudes. Using panel surveys of roughly 300,000 U.S. college students, we compare students across college majors while conditioning on pre-college political attitudes and major-related preferences.  Several pieces of evidence support a causal interpretation. The estimates are robust to conservative sensitivity analyses, the controls eliminate nearly all omitted-variable bias from observed demographic and behavioral characteristics, and complementary analyses exploiting supply-side variation in field availability yield consistent results. The estimated effects of academic fields are substantial. Relative to the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities shift students left, while economics and business shift them right, with particularly large effects on economic policy positions. These effects also extend to related behaviors and priorities: social sciences and humanities increase political activism, whereas economics and business increase the importance students place on their own financial success. The evidence suggests that academic content, rather than peers or expected earnings, is the mechanism. Finally, field choice contributes to political fragmentation because students tend to select majors that align with their pre-existing attitudes.

This paper shows that heuristics in self-evaluation can distort high-stakes educational choices and generate persistent earnings consequences. Using administrative data, I exploit a regression discontinuity at a round-number threshold on the national university entrance test. A score just above this threshold does not confer a formal admission advantage and typically remains below the cutoff for high-return STEM programs. Yet students who score just above this mark on their first attempt are substantially more likely to later enroll in such degrees, shifting away from lower-return degrees. The pattern is consistent with left-digit bias in self-evaluation: students treat the leading digit of the score as a salient signal of ability and adjust both the programs they target and the effort they devote to gaining admission. Years later, students just above the threshold are more likely to work in the tech sector and earn higher wages. Using threshold crossing as an instrument for high-return STEM enrollment, I estimate large local wage returns for students whose degree choices are shifted by this heuristic response. A preregistered survey experiment supports the mechanism: round-number thresholds generate sharp discontinuities in perceived qualification and in stated willingness to continue pursuing STEM.

This paper examines the short- and long-term consequences of participation in high school Gifted Children Programs (GCPs). Using administrative data that follow individuals from primary school to adulthood, we find that while these programs have negligible effects on high school academic achievement, they substantially influence university trajectories. Specifically, GCP participation shifts the choice of field of study, increases the incidence of double majors, and increases the probability of attaining advanced degrees. Interestingly, we find no effect on earnings or employment—either overall or within knowledge-based sectors—indicating that the high baseline productivity gifted children possess is not further enhanced by program participation. However, we find that GCP participation positively affects spouse “quality” and significantly increases the likelihood of working with fellow GCP peers, suggesting that the program has important long-run effects on the social connections of gifted students. We discuss potential mechanisms within the context of psychological theories of giftedness.

We examine how physician decisions are impacted by difficult cases - encounters with newly diagnosed cancer patients. Using detailed administrative data, we compare primary care physicians' decisions in visits that occurred before and after difficult cases and matched comparison cases by the same physicians on other dates. Immediately following a difficult case, physicians increase referrals for common tests, including diagnostic tests unrelated to cancer. The effect lasts only for about an hour, and is not driven by patient selection or schedule disruption. The results highlight difficult encounters as a source for variability in physician practice. 

We examine whether primary care physicians alter their clinical decision-making following realizations of low probability risks among their patients --  events of colon cancer diagnoses. Relying on comprehensive administrative visit level data from a large Israeli HMO, we find that physicians increase their patients' use of colonoscopy tests substantially during the first three months following such events and that in the subsequent twelve months the effect dissipates. We find no indication that older -- typically more experienced -- physicians are less responsive to Events, nor do we find that physicians' response varies by their gender. Considering that in our setting, it is unlikely that colon cancer diagnoses convey information in the traditional sense, these results indicate the existence of attention effects.  Unexpected events induce a stronger physician response and the increase in the use of colonoscopy tests is more pronounced among patients that are similar to the patient involved in the event, in line with recent work on cognitive mechanisms and memory where surprises and associative memory play a key role in decision making.  We also do not find evidence that the quality of colonoscopy tests decreases with the increase in their use, suggesting that in response to events, physicians induce adherence to colonoscopy tests among their at-risk patients rather than merely lowering the cut-off risk level of prescribing colonoscopy tests.