Yoav Goldstein - Research

Work in Progress

Changing Minds: How Academic Fields Shape Political Attitudes with Matan Kolerman-Shemer (draft is available upon request)

Linking pre- and post-college surveys of 310,000 students at 477 four-year American colleges (1990–2019), we show that majoring in humanities or social sciences, compared to business or economics, increases liberal self-identification. The estimated effect, controlling for an unusually rich set of pre-college characteristics, including prior ideology and intended major, is 0.22 standard deviations or 10 percentage points. Unobserved selection would need to be over ten times stronger than observed to overturn this result. Causal claims are further supported by quasi-experimental evidence: institution-level expansions in business and economics, uncorrelated with students’ entering ideologies, shift students’ political ideology at graduation. Major choice also shapes policy attitudes and political behaviors, such as voting and demonstrating. Peer composition explains less than 10\% of these effects; instead, exposure to more liberal faculty, especially in the humanities and social sciences, emerges as the main mechanism. Sorting into majors amplifies both polarization and gender gaps, suggesting that field specialization within postsecondary education contributes to political fragmentation. Beyond politics, major choice also shifts students’ life goals, leading those in business and economics to prioritize financial wealth, consistent with preference change as a mechanism for career outcomes.

Heuristic Self-Evaluation and the Returns to STEM (in revision, new draft coming soon)

older version: Learning from Round Test Scores: University Field Choices and Career Outcomes

This study examines how heuristic-based self-evaluation shapes educational decisions and career trajectories. Using administrative records that link university entrance test scores, applications, enrollment, and tax data, I exploit a regression discontinuity at a round-number threshold on the first test. Students who score just above this threshold are substantially more likely to pursue lucrative STEM degrees than those just below it. Because the round score lies below the admission cutoffs and provides no formal admissions advantage, the discontinuity reflects left-digit bias: Crossing the round number boosts students’ perceived success, prompting them to improve their scores and apply to STEM. A decade later, these students earn higher wages, are more likely to work in technology firms, and are disproportionately represented in the top percentiles of the earnings distribution. These gains persist twenty years after the test. The findings show how uncertainty can generate undermatch in test-based meritocratic admission systems, creating persistent disparities in economic opportunity unrelated to underlying talent.

Gifted Children Programs’ Short and Long-Term Impact: Higher Education, Earnings, and the Knowledge-Economy with Victor Lavy (in revision, new draft coming soon)

older version: NBER w29779

This paper examines the short-run and longer-term effects of studying in gifted classes in high schools. Our results show that GCPs have tiny effects on high school academic achievement but substantially influence university outcomes. This influence is manifested in the choice of field of study, a higher incidence of double majors, and an increased likelihood of pursuing advanced degrees. Interestingly, participation in gifted classes does not affect earnings or employment in knowledge-based sectors, implying that gifted children do well in the labor market regardless of their participation in a special class. Finally, participation in gifted classes does not affect the likelihood of marriage or having children. Still, it positively affects the spouse’s “quality” driven by marriages between gifted students and their classmates. We discuss potential mechanisms by relating our findings to the literature in psychology about gifted children.

Published and Forthcoming Papers

Challenging Encounters and Within-Physician Practice Variability with Gabriel Chodick, Ity Shurtz and Dan Zeltzer

Forthcoming at The Review of Economics and Statistics

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.

Realization of Low Probability Clinical Risks and Physician Behavior: Evidence from Primary Care Physicians with Gabriel Chodick and Ity Shurtz

Forthcoming at The American Journal of Health Economics

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.