Work in Progress
Information Environment, Biased Beliefs, and Discrimination
This paper investigates how the mode of information acquisition—via explicit description or direct experience—shapes belief formation and discriminatory behavior in hiring. While the Description-Experience Gap is well established in the context of risky choice, its implications for beliefs and other decisions remain underexplored. I design a laboratory experiment in which employers evaluate either Asian or Hispanic worker groups with identical productivity distributions. Employers receive information about worker productivity through one of three methods: description (a histogram), forced experience (random sampling of a fixed number of workers), or voluntary experience (self-directed random sampling). I elicit employer beliefs before and after learning and measure discriminatory behavior through wage offers, comparing outcomes to a no-learning benchmark. I find that both belief bias and wage discrimination are significantly reduced in the forced experience condition but persists under both voluntary experience and description. Moreover, Discrimination patterns also diverge between experience types, suggesting that the structure of experiential learning matters. By identifying a novel source of belief-based discrimination, this paper advances our understanding of how information environments shape beliefs and offers insights into effective behavioral interventions to reduce discrimination.
Behavioral Incentive Compatibility of BDM Belief Elicitation
[Slides]
Recent evidence has shown that revealing incentives during belief elicitation might negatively impact truth telling, even if the elicitation mechanism is theoretically incentive compatible. In this project, I study the effect of quantitative incentive information on truth telling in the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) belief elicitation mechanism. Subjects guess the probability of selecting a red urn out of 10 urns of colors red and blue, where the number of urns of each color is known. Results show that in the treatment where subjects are shown full quantitative incentives, the rate of false reports is around 10 percentage points higher than in the treatment where no quantitative incentives are shown. This higher rate of false reports is driven by subjects who misunderstood the incentives. Given that BDM belief elicitation is particularly difficult to explain and implement, this result shows a potentially simpler and more practical way of eliciting beliefs while maintaining quality of data.
Diversity in Schools: Immigrants and the Long-Run Outcomes of US-Born Students
(with Briana Ballis and Derek Rury)
Data access from Texas Education Agency approved in 2022. Awarded the Russell Sage Foundation Research Grant for the Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration Program in March 2023. Data analysis currently in progress.
From the Playground to the Polls: Immigrant Peers and Political Outcomes of US-Born Student
(with Briana Ballis and Derek Rury)
Working Papers
Do Schools Matter? Measuring the Impact of California High Schools on Test Scores and Postsecondary Enrollment
(with Scott Carrell, Michal Kurlaender, Paco Martorell, and Matthew Naven)
Media: Education Next
Using a longitudinal panel of students’ standardized test scores and college enrollment records in California, we estimate high school impacts on test score performance, post-secondary enrollment, and the relationship between the two. We estimate two measures of school quality – a base model measuring each school’s “total” contribution to student outcomes and a second measure which isolates the “malleable” component of school quality accounting for peer, neighborhood, and family quality. Results show substantial variation across schools in both test scores and college enrollment. A one-standard deviation increase in total school quality is associated with a 0.15 standard deviation increase in standardized test scores and a 9.9 percentage point increase in four-year college enrollment. Though, these impacts shrink considerably (0.10 s.d. & 4.8 ppts) when isolating the malleable component of school quality. Importantly, our results show that test score impacts “persist” to college enrollment. Higher test score value-added schools increase college enrollment across multiple margins – lower ability students move from no college to two-year colleges while higher ability students move from two-year to four-year colleges.
The Transition to College for Gender and Sexual Minority Youth
(with Alexandria Hurtt, Michal Kurlaender, Kairo Weber, and Baiyu Zhou)
Policy Reports and Briefs
Transition to College: Voices from the Class of 2023. Policy Analysis for California Education
(with Michal Kurlaender, Alexandria Hurtt, and Baiyu Zhou)
[Report]
This brief examines the experiences of California high school seniors from the graduating class of 2023, offering insights into their preparation, plans, and concerns for college prior to enrollment. Drawing on results from a large-scale survey of seniors, the findings reveal important variation in students’ secondary school experiences and their plans for college, particularly by race/ethnicity and gender identity. As students’ experiences in high school influence concerns about their college futures, these results represent an important marker of what college going may look like for future graduating cohorts and can help policymakers and practitioners better understand the context of students’ postsecondary decisions and pathways.
California Cradle-to-Career Data System 2024 Student Experience Report
(with Jacob Jackson, Michal Kurlaender, Stephanie Luna-Lopez, Judy Chan, and Elizabeth Pierotti)
[Report]
In spring 2024, the California Education Lab at the University of California, Davis, partnered with the California Cradle-to-Career Data System (C2C) and the California Student Aid Commission to document the experience of high school seniors. We document students’ plans after high school, their experiences with the FAFSA or CADAA and with college applications, their attitudes toward college, their experiences in high school, and their expectations for their college experience.
Applying for Financial Aid: Lessons from California’s 2024 High School Seniors
(with Jacob Jackson, Michal Kurlaender, Stephanie Luna-Lopez, Jessica Moldoff, and Ryan Fuller)
[Report]