High School Track Choice and Financial Constraints: Evidence from Urban Mexico

Ciro Avitabile, Matteo Bobba and Marco Pariguana

No 16-661, TSE Working Papers from Toulouse School of Economics (TSE)

Abstract: We study how a large household windfall affects sorting of relatively disadvantaged youth over high school tracks by exploiting the discontinuity in the assignment of a welfare program in Mexico. The in-cash transfer is found to significantly increase the probability of selecting vocational schools as the most preferred options vis-a-vis other more academically oriented education modalities. We find support for the hypothe- sis that the receipt of unearned income allows some students to choose a schooling career with higher out-of-pocket expenditures and higher expected returns. The ob- served change in stated preferences across tracks effectively alters school placement, and bears a positive effect on later education outcomes.

Keywords: school choice; tracking; financial constraints; vocational education; returns to education; regression discontinuity design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 I21 I24 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-06, Revised 2017-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Working Paper: High school track choice and financial constraints: evidence from urban Mexico (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tse:wpaper:30495

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