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Christopher A. Neilson Publications

Journal of Development Economics
Abstract

This paper examines the effects of phone calls designed to encourage viewership of the short telenovela Decidiendo para un Futuro Mejor (Deciding for a Better Future, hereafter DFM) on national television during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 in Peru. DFM uses video content to highlight the benefits of education while providing concrete information on wages and financial aid opportunities for higher education. We evaluate the impact of these calls on dropout rates in 2021 through a randomized controlled trial involving over 80,000 families with high school students. Our findings indicate that the phone calls led to a significant reduction in school dropout rates, with intention-to-treat (ITT) effects of approximately −0.6 percentage points—a meaningful impact given the 10.2% average dropout rate in the control group. The effects are stronger for students from schools with higher baseline dropout and poverty rates, with no significant differences based on parental education levels. Our results also suggest that the observed effects are primarily driven by encouragement to watch DFM rather than by the direct impact of the phone calls themselves. These findings underscore the potential of cost-effective interventions to mitigate the adverse effects of major economic shocks on educational trajectories.

Economics of Education Review
Abstract

This paper studies school choice and information frictions in Haiti. Through a randomized control trial, we assess the impact of disclosing school-level test score information on learning outcomes, prices, and market shares. We find evidence that in markets where information was disclosed, students attending private schools increased test scores. The results also suggest private schools with higher baseline test scores increased their market share as well as their fees when the disclosure policy is implemented. While prices and test scores were not significantly correlated in the baseline survey, they exhibited a significant and positive correlation in treatment markets after information disclosure. These results underscore the potential of information provision to enhance market efficiency and improve children’s welfare in context such as Haiti.

Journal of Political Economy
Abstract

We study the welfare and human capital impacts of colleges’ (non)participation in Chile’s centralized higher-education platform, leveraging administrative data and two policy changes: the introduction of a large scholarship program and the inclusion of additional institutions, which raised the number of on-platform slots by approximately 40%. We first show that the expansion of the platform raised on-time graduation rates. We then develop and estimate a model of college applications, offers, wait lists, matriculation, and graduation. When the platform expands, welfare increases, and welfare, enrollment, and graduation rates are less sensitive to off-platform frictions. Gains are larger for students from lower-socioeconomic-status backgrounds.