Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/173819 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Series/Report no.: 
IDB Working Paper Series No. IDB-WP-728
Publisher: 
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Washington, DC
Abstract: 
This paper designs and implements a field experiment that provides students from less advantaged backgrounds with individualized feedback on academic performance during the transition from middle to high school. The intervention reduces the gap between expected and actual performance, as well as shrinks the variance of individual ability distributions. Guided by a simple Bayesian model, the paper empirically documents the interplay between variance reductions and mean changes of beliefs in shaping curricular choices. The shift in revealed preferences on high school tracks enabled by the intervention affects schooling trajectories, with better-performing students being assigned into more academically oriented options.
Subjects: 
Information
Bayesian updating
Biased beliefs
School choice
JEL: 
D83
I21
I24
J24
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc-nd Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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