Working Papers
Distance to Schools and Equal Access in School Choice Systems [paper]
Revision requested, Journal of Public Economics
This paper studies the impact of geography on cross-racial access to schools under school choice systems. Using data from Boston Public Schools, I show that white prekindergarteners are assigned to schools that are rated higher using measures of test-score levels, test-score growth, and race-balanced growth, than Black students; and that cross-race school-rating gaps under choice are no lower than would be generated by a neighborhood assignment rule. I find that longer commutes to high-rated schools reduce access for Black students. Consistent with a more favorable geography; Hispanic students, on the other hand, sort toward high-growth and race-balanced growth schools under choice.
Gains from Alternative Assignment? Evidence from a Two-Sided Teacher Market, with Elton Mykerezi, Aaron Sojourner, and Aradhya Sood [paper] - Under Review
The literature on assignment mechanisms largely focuses on efficiency based on agents' preferences, though policymakers may prioritize different goals. In assigning teachers to classrooms, a school district might prioritize student learning but must also consider teacher welfare. This paper studies the potential gains in student test scores from alternative within-district assignments of teachers to classrooms, using novel administrative data on teacher and school principal decisions from the district's internal transfer system (ITS) and student test scores under the observed assignments. To credibly predict student test scores under unrealized assignments, we jointly model student achievement and teacher and principal decisions, accounting for potential selection of teachers on test score gains. We estimate the variation in teachers' comparative advantage in producing learning to be one-ninth the magnitude of the variation in their general effectiveness. Further, teachers dislike comparative advantage-based assignments. Assignment of teachers to classrooms to maximize learning under the constraint of not reducing any assigned teacher's welfare would raise the average test score by 7% of a standard deviation (SD) relative to that under the observed assignment, with this effect driven mostly by assignment of teachers with higher general effectiveness to larger classrooms rather than by harnessing teachers' comparative advantage.
Selected Work in Progress
Disentangling School and Peer Effects: A Non-linear Approach with School Lotteries, with Minseon Park and Suk Joon Son
We develop a unified framework to disentangle school effects and peer effects on student achievement. Identification leverages exogenous tie‐breaker lotteries in centralized school choice systems. To preserve statistical power while accounting for the potential non-linearity of peer effect, we summarize treatments and confounders parsimoniously: the full distribution of peers’ baseline scores is captured by functional principal components (FPCA), and selection on observables is addressed by conditioning on expected peer distributions and school‐specific admission probabilities; lottery–based deviations from these expectations provide instruments for realized peers. Applying the approach to New York City middle schools, we find a non-monotonic and non-linear peer effect: performance varies with the gap between classmates’ and a student’s own baseline scores, exhibiting both a rank effect and positive spillovers in parts of the distribution of peer baseline test scores. When we estimate school effects net of peers, the cross-school dispersion of value added rises by about 20% relative to conventional VA measures that omit peers, indicating that peer composition compresses VA estimates.
Targeting and Efficiency in the Allocation of Childcare Subsidies, with Minseon Park, Suk Joon Son, and Esperanza Johnson
This project studies the trade-off between efficiency and redistribution in waitlist-based allocation systems applied to Massachusetts’ childcare subsidy program. The program allocates assistance through two mechanisms—vouchers that allow parental choice of providers and direct assignments to specific centers—creating natural variation in the degree of choice families face. Restricting choice may reduce match quality but can improve targeting if families with better outside options self-select out, while also encouraging provider expansion in lower-income areas by stabilizing funding. Using administrative data on all applicants and providers from 2015 to 2019, we quantify how variation in the degree of choice shapes both allocative efficiency and redistribution toward more disadvantaged families.