Highlighted Publications




 

Mejia, Wigul, Hsieh, and Johnson (2026) examined whether the benefits of earning a college degree outweigh the costs for California students. They drew on labor market, higher education, financial aid, and student debt data from California and national sources to compare earnings, employment outcomes, college costs, and borrowing patterns across educational levels. They found that college graduates earn substantially more than non-graduates, with bachelor’s degree holders ear

Sacerdote, Staiger, and Tine (2025) examined whether test-optional college admissions policies help or harm high-achieving applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds. They analyzed admissions and enrollment data from Dartmouth College covering more than 99,000 applicants across test-required and test-optional years. Their primary question was whether withholding SAT or ACT scores affects admission outcomes. They found that high-achieving disadvantaged students often failed to

Almås, Drange, Meghir, and Zachrisson (2026) examined whether attending childcare at an earlier age improves academic performance later in childhood and adolescence. They used Norwegian administrative registry data covering entire national birth cohorts from 2002–2007, along with standardized math and reading test scores in grades 5 and 9. They found that starting childcare one year earlier increased ninth-grade math scores by about 9.7% of a standard deviation overall. The e

Slaughter and Weiss (2026) examined whether evidence-based community college interventions can “pay for themselves” from the college perspective through added tuition revenue and state funding. They analyzed cost and outcome data from 19 randomized controlled trial interventions and simulated implementation across 857 community colleges in 41 states. The interventions averaged about $2,100 in costs per student but generated only about $200 in new revenue, leaving colleges wit

Avdeev (2025) examines whether exposure to international students affects the long-term outcomes of native students. He uses administrative and survey data from the Netherlands covering about one million students over three decades. The study finds that a 10 percentage point increase in international student share raises natives’ likelihood of cohabiting with non-natives by 5.9%, marrying a non-native by 4.2%, and emigrating by 4.0%. It also increases pro-migration attitudes

Bloem, Hu, and Hurwitz (2026) ask how post-college earnings vary across colleges when using the full earnings distribution and how college selectivity relates to those outcomes. They analyze U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard data covering nearly all four-year colleges, including earnings percentiles 6, 8, and 10 years after entry. They find that rankings change substantially across percentiles, with about 40% of colleges shifting more than 150 places. Earnings ov

Mbekeani, Papay, Mantil, and Murnane (2026) examine how much high schools affect students’ long-term outcomes, including college enrollment, graduation, and earnings. They use longitudinal data from Massachusetts following five cohorts of ninth-grade students, combining administrative records and survey data. They find large differences across schools: students attending higher value-added schools are 11% more likely to enroll in college, 31% more likely to graduate from a fo

Nelissen and De Witte (2026) examine whether raising the compulsory schooling age from 17 to 18 improves long-term educational and labor market outcomes. They use Dutch administrative microdata tracking individuals from adolescence into adulthood, exploiting a quasi-experimental reform. They find the policy reduced dropout by about 1.3 percentage points and increased high school completion by roughly 0.5 points, with stronger effects for vocational students. By age 31, employ

Singer (2026) examines whether the duration of remote learning in 2020–21 affected student attendance after the pandemic. He uses longitudinal administrative data on nearly one million Michigan students from 2017–18 through 2023–24, combined with district-level measures of remote learning duration. Using difference-in-differences and instrumental variables, he finds that each additional month of remote learning reduced post-pandemic attendance by about 0.46 percentage points.

Najam and Thompson (2026) examine whether adopting a four-day school week affects juvenile crime. They analyze incident-level crime data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System across six states, combined with longitudinal data on school schedule adoption from 2005–2019. Using a difference-in-differences design, they find that four-day school weeks increase juvenile crime by about 12%, driven by a 20% rise in property crime and a 9% rise in violent crime. They also

Bueno, Mawi, Page, and Smith (2026) examine how place-based scholarships affect student borrowing and early academic outcomes. They ask whether receiving the Achieve Atlanta scholarship changes loan use and first-semester performance. Using linked administrative data from Atlanta Public Schools, Achieve Atlanta, and Georgia’s public college systems, they compare recipients to similar non-recipients. They find recipients are 7 percentage points less likely to borrow (18% reduc

Burdick-Will and Stein (2026) ask how commute complexity, especially bus transfers, affects high school students’ attendance, school mobility, and academic performance. They analyze administrative data on all Baltimore City high school students in 2016–17 and 2017–18, exploiting a system-wide transit overhaul as a natural experiment. They find that total travel time has no meaningful effect on outcomes, but requiring a bus transfer increases absenteeism and school switching.

Morgan et al. (2025) examine whether large, effectiveness-based financial incentives combined with improved hiring authority can attract and retain high-quality educators in low-performing schools. They analyze administrative data from the Dallas Independent School District, including student test scores, teacher evaluations, and staffing records. Using a difference-in-differences design, they find that the reform substantially increased teacher quality and student achievemen

Garthwaite et al. (2025) examine who benefits from the economic rents generated by college sports under amateurism. They ask how revenue from football and men’s basketball is redistributed within athletic departments. They analyze panel data on revenues and expenditures from Power Five athletic programs (2006–2019), along with player-level demographic data. They find substantial rent-sharing: about $0.31 of each additional dollar is reinvested in revenue sports, while roughly

Yim (2026) asks whether being assigned to early morning college classes changes students’ academic outcomes and long-term academic paths. He analyzes administrative data from Purdue University covering several thousand freshman course enrollments after the university introduced a system that effectively randomized class times across course sections. The study links course schedules to grades, later STEM course enrollment, major choice, and expected earnings by major. Yim find

Hensvik and Jävervall (2024) ask whether increased school competition reduces parental “voice,” measured through formal complaints about schools. They analyze administrative complaint data from Sweden’s national education authorities and link it to changes in local school competition following the expansion of independent schools under the voucher system. They find that greater competition is associated with fewer parental complaints to regulators. A one–standard deviation in

Shakya (2026) asks whether participation in a pre-collegiate summer bridge program improves early college outcomes for economically disadvantaged and first-generation students. He analyzes student-level administrative data from a large U.S. public land-grant university, focusing on applicants to the Bridge Scholars Program between 2016 and 2022. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design based on a $16,000 Expected Family Contribution eligibility cutoff, he estimates causa

Crespin (2025) examines whether publicly releasing school social climate ratings affects housing prices and the socioeconomic sorting of homebuyers. He studies a plausibly exogenous information shock in Chicago in 2011, when school climate reports were first made public. He links parcel-level housing transaction data from Zillow (ZTRAX) with homebuyer income data from HMDA and school administrative records. He finds that homes zoned to the highest-rated schools saw price incr

Lawson and Sass (2026) study how teachers’ effectiveness changed when schools shifted from in-person to remote instruction. They ask whether the move to online learning altered relative teacher performance and which teacher traits predicted success. They analyze matched student–teacher administrative data from three large metro-Atlanta districts, using fall-to-winter math and reading test score growth for grades K–8. They find that variation in teacher effectiveness increased

Landon and Pope (2026) study whether changing how schools schedule instructional time—specifically longer school days paired with fewer school days—affects student achievement and teacher turnover . They ask whether reallocating the same total annual instructional hours alters productivity. Using administrative data from over 2 million Los Angeles Unified School District students (2002–2012) and policy-driven calendar changes, they estimate causal effects. They find minimal