Behavioral economics concepts can advance understanding, predicting, and controlling complex human behavior. Although there have been numerous attempts to apply behavioral economics concepts to applied settings, there are a limited number of experiments conducted in educational settings. The purpose of the studies in this paper is a to apply well-grounded scientific findings in behavioral economics to education to advance our understanding of teaching and learning and to develop cost-effective interventions. Study 1 (Kim et al., 2021) was a systematic review and meta-analysis on 24 token economy studies conducted in general and special education classrooms from kindergarten to 5th grade between 2000 and 2019. Eight token economy components and effect sizes were identified for each study and compared across different classroom types. The results showed that the token economy intervention yielded large effect sizes for both general and special education classroom types. There were differences in the usage of token components including backup reinforcer types, token production rate, and exchange production rate based on classroom types. In Study 2, the researchers conducted two experiments to develop a rapid, user-friendly assessment of delay discounting for educators interested in quantifying sensitivity to reward delays for school-aged children. The first experiment reanalyzed data collected by Reed and Martens (2011) and found that 1-month delay choices predicted student classroom behavior. The second experiment investigated the utility of the 1-month delay indifference point in predicting saving and spending behavior of second-grade students using token economies with two different token production schedules. Collectively, results showed that the 1-month delay indifference point predicted classroom behavior and children who discounted less and had greater self-regulation, accrued and saved more tokens. In Study 3, the researchers investigated the effects of a classwide progressive delay training procedure on students’ advantageous choice-making behavior, which is the behavior of selecting a larger, delayed outcome over a smaller, immediately available reinforcer. The intervention used progressive delay, which refers to incrementally increasing the temporal delay for a more delayed, advantageous outcome, and choice-making opportunities to promote second grade students’ choice of a larger reinforcer associated with a delay. The results showed mixed results – the intervention was effective at increasing advantageous choice-making behavior for students performing on and below grade-level for math, but the effects were not shown in students performing above grade-level. Study 4 further examined the educational importance of delayed consequences by determining the relationship between verbal behavior repertoires, delay discounting, and academic achievement. Specifically, the researchers used the degree of Incidental-Bidirectional Naming (Inc-BiN) for verbal behavior, degree of tolerance to delayed consequences using hypothetical binary choices involving money for delay discounting, and standardized math and reading scores for academic achievement. The results showed that participants with greater degree of Inc-BiN had significantly greater tolerance for delayed consequences. However, there was no relation found between academic achievement and delay discounting or Inc-BiN. Together, the four studies in this paper successfully (1) translated basic behavioral economics research findings to educational settings and (2) investigated methods that maximize efficiency and effectiveness of practices and tools used in classrooms.

This dissertation consists of essays studying the impacts of education policies on outcomes measured at three distinct points in the high school to labor force continuum: course taking and academic performance in high school, choice of college and major, and labor market returns to completing college. The chapters are linked by their focus on understanding how these policies affect disadvantaged and under-represented populations, and by their exploitation of exogenous variation in the timing and assignment of treatments to identify causal effects. The first chapter asks whether lack of information about ability helps explain why high-performing students from disadvantaged backgrounds tend to under-invest in their education. In the presence of uncertainty, an information shock may lead individuals to revise their beliefs and decision-making. To explore this question, I examine an individualized signal of academic aptitude known as "AP Potential'' that is provided in Preliminary SAT (PSAT) reports. The signal provides information about students' aptitude for Advanced Placement (AP), a national program that offers college-level courses and exams in high school. In the United States, participation in AP has become a key step on the path to admission into selective four-year colleges. I begin by collecting high-frequency panel data on subjective beliefs from students in Oakland, California. Students stated their expected performance on the PSAT, beliefs about their abilities, and expectations about future academic outcomes before and after receiving their PSAT results reports. This survey data allows me to identify the information shock students experienced from the PSAT. I establish that although the PSAT is, on average, a negative information shock, the AP Potential signal itself contains valuable information: students with the same PSAT score and prior beliefs about own ability who receive the AP Potential signal experience a more positive information shock. The information shock in turn leads students to revise their beliefs about their ability, the number of AP classes they plan to take, and the likelihood that they will attend a four-year college, consistent with a Bayesian updating framework. I focus next on estimating whether the AP Potential signal has a causal effect on the probability of participating in AP and the number of AP classes in which students actually enroll by exploiting the deterministic relationship between PSAT scores and the AP Potential signal in a Regression Discontinuity (RD) design. Both graphical and more formal non-parametric and parametric methods robustly demonstrate that surveyed students on the margin of receiving the signal enroll in approximately one more AP course their junior year, increasing the probability of participation in the AP program by at least 26 percentage points. Given the demographics and performance levels of students at the margin, this effect amounted to increasing the number of high-ability, under-represented high school students taking college-level courses in Oakland. In addition, mismatch between course enrollments and student ability decreased. When I extend this analysis to students in other schools who did not take the survey, I find that the AP Potential signal had no effect on their course enrollment decisions. This finding is equally important, as it indicates that only students who received an explanation of their PSAT results, the AP Potential signal, and ways to use the information exhibited a behavioral response to the signal. The AP Potential message is not especially conspicuous on PSAT reports, so students who were surveyed likely received an intensified treatment. The results suggest that providing a credible, individualized signal of ability is a cost-effective means of increasing human capital investments among disadvantaged students. The second chapter examines how men and women respond to changes in the competitiveness of university admissions. Experimental research has shown that women respond to competition differently than men, which could help explain gender gaps in math performance and selection into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs. A growing body of work has found suggestive evidence that these relationships also exist in practical educational settings. However, exogenous variation in competition has been restricted to the experimental literature, leaving the differential causal effects of competitive admissions an open question. An affirmative action policy enacted in Venezuela in 2002 provides a unique opportunity to explore how men and women's academic performance and college application decisions respond to changes in competition. The policy led to exogenous shocks in the competitiveness of the university admissions process, effectively increasing competition for socioeconomically advantaged students and decreasing competition for disadvantaged students. Students who neither belonged to the advantaged nor disadvantaged groups defined by the policy were unaffected and thus served as a control group. I use a triple-difference approach on the universe of college applicants between 1994 and 2007 to estimate the impact of changes in the level of competition on high school GPA, math and verbal test scores, and the selectivity of college applications by gender. My results suggest that men and women respond differently to changes in the competitiveness of university admissions, consistent with experimental evidence. The results indicate that males, in both the advantaged and disadvantaged groups, did not respond to the policy change. Women, on the other hand, responded strongly, improving their performance in GPA and in the verbal test in response to both the increase in competition and the increased incentive to exert effort provided by affirmative action. One of the main findings, however, is that increased competition led to lower math test scores for women, while reduced competition led women to increase their performance in math. A student's goal should be to maximize the academic index used for admissions, which places equal weight on verbal and math scores. Under time constraints, if women believe they are more effective at improving their verbal scores, they should allocate more time to studying for the verbal test, perhaps even allocating too much time away from studying math, which would result in lower math scores. However, only women who experienced higher levels of competition had lower math scores. Women from the disadvantaged group who experienced less competition improved their math scores, as well as their GPA and verbal scores. The second main finding is that women in the disadvantaged group who experienced less competition applied to more selective programs. In particular, the competitiveness of their top-ranked choice, which should reflect their true preference given the assignment mechanism in place, saw the biggest increase, even net of the effect due to their improved performance. Given the persistence of a wage gender gap despite women's higher educational attainment, how competitive admissions influence sorting into specific universities and majors emerges as a key question. The third chapter, which is a joint work with Ruth Uwaifo appearing in the Economics of Education Review, studies how expanding access to higher education affects college graduates once they reach the labor market. We focus on a major university education reform in Venezuela known as Mission Sucre, which provided free, open-access tertiary education targeted to the poor and marginalized, and its potential impact on returns to university education on non-participants. We begin by finding that returns to education decreased in Venezuela over the period Mission Sucre was introduced, despite a previous upward trend and an economic boom. Although returns to all levels of education declined during this period, the return to university education fell by over 10 percentage points more than other levels. Motivated by these preliminary findings, we evaluate the possible role of Mission Sucre on the significant decline in returns to university education. For our main analysis, we compare the returns to university education and technical education in a difference-in-difference strategy. We focus on these particular levels of education because both are tertiary levels and are more likely to have similar general trends in returns. More importantly, Mission Sucre originally focused on only expanding university education. This allows us to classify those with university education as a treatment group and those with technical education as a potential control group. We find that Mission Sucre led to a 2.7 percentage point decrease in returns to university education of non-participants in the 23-28 age cohort between 2007 and 2008, the year the first cohort of Mission Sucre graduates entered the labor force. Further, states with higher shares of Mission Sucre students had a larger decline in the returns to university education. Specifically, a 1 percent increase in the share of Mission Sucre students led to a 0.4 percentage point decline in the returns to university education. Although we provide ample evidence of the impact of Mission Sucre, we cannot state whether the noted effect of the program is driven solely by an excess supply of skilled labor, or a combination of the excess supply and other negative externalities of the program on nonparticipants, such as a change in the perceived overall quality of public higher education. Nevertheless, our results present a cautionary tale of the short-term effects of a rapid and large expansion in access to university education.

Over the last forty years, the U.S. community college system has expanded, allowing disadvantaged groups greater access to higher education. With that expansion, a body of research has emerged examining community college students' educational outcomes. However, the research is limited in understanding the academic persistence of low-income students and community college student in particular. The purpose of this comparative, qualitative study is to explore some of the unanswered questions about how low income white and Latino students' experience academic persistence similarly and differently and understand how gender influences the challenges students may face during college. This study draws from interviews of 22 (11 White/11 Latino/a) low-income community college students at a rural, Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) in the West. All students share similar challenges because of their class constraints, but Latino/a students in particular face challenges of racism and discrimination that carried over into their college careers. Faculty and family are the key sources of support for all students, which mediate some of the challenges. Variation is seen between the experiences of males and females, as traditional gender roles are reinforced and maintained in the family. This study offers insights into how structural inequality creates barriers for students from their perspective and gives recommendations for practitioners on how to mediate some of these challenges and increase student persistence.

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Understanding what schools can do to help low-income and high-achieving students succeed academically was one of the prime motivations of this dissertation. In Mexico, low-income students perform in the lowest quartiles of standardized tests, and their future is not promising. In order to understand what factors can help low-income students succeed at school, I reviewed the school effectiveness and resilience literature as to understand the different factors that determine academic achievement of students coming from low-income backgrounds. Through a thorough quantitative analysis of the Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA) 2009 and the Formato 911 databases, I identified the different factors that helped low-income students succeed at school. I first analyzed the student, family, and school factors that determined students’ academic achievement in Mexico, in order to get a general idea of what determined achievement of students in Mexico, as a country. Then, I went further and focused more on my sample of interest and analyzed the student, family, and school factors that were associated with a higher probability of showing higher scores on tests, even when struggling with a lack of resources. The most noteworthy finding from the analyses conducted to understand what determined students’ achievement in Mexico, as a country, was that academic performance was mainly explained by students' individual characteristics. Characteristics, including whether the student had a low or high socioeconomic status, whether he or she was in the appropriate grade, whether the student was a girl or a boy, whether he or she attended preschool, whether the student lived with his or her mother, and the attitude he or she had toward school, seemed to be associated with how the student scored on standardized tests. The school level variables that had a positive association with the students’ performance were the schools’ mean Index of Economic, Social and Cultural Status (ESCS), whether the school was private, and the percentage of indigenous students in the school. By estimating cross-level interaction effects, I found the interaction between ESCS and whether the school was located in a rural area and whether the school was a distance education program to be statistically significant. The aforementioned outcomes showed that one additional standard deviation of income had a very small effect on the academic achievement of students living in rural areas or attending a distance education program school. Another interesting finding is that the number of teachers enrolled in the incentives program offered by the government, Carrera Magisterial, was not statistically significant in any of my models, showing that this program was not effective in improving the education that middle school and 15-year-old students received in Mexico. I also analyzed the different factors that increased the probability of low-income students obtaining scores that were higher than would have been predicted given their socioeconomic status. I named these learners resilient students. I found a student’s attitude toward school, whether the student repeated zero, one or two or more primary school grades, whether they student attended a private or a Telesecundaria school, and the average class size of the school to be statistically significant variables. Attitude toward school seemed to have the largest contribution to increasing the probability of being categorized as resilient, almost half of a standard deviation, and remained positive and statistically significant in the analysis. The analysis showed that improving a student’s attitude toward school in one standard deviation, increased the probability of that student being resilient by 24 percentage points. However, it is hard to tell if students who are succeeding are doing so because of their attitude or if successful students have a better attitude because they are doing well in school. In any case, this variable was highly statistically significant and was similar to a noncognitive ability measure, which, according to the literature, includes skills omitted in most of the analyses of the determinants of achievement. One of most relevant findings of this study is that the number of teachers enrolled in the incentives program of the government, Carrera Magisterial, was not statistically significant in any of my models, showing that this program was not effective in improving the education that middle school and 15-year-old students received in Mexico. One of the implications is that the government should not consider the possibility of restoring that program in the Mexican education system. Preschool education, attitude towards school, gender, and time-spent in class are factors that highly related with the success of low-income students. Additional analysis and data is needed in order to perform further analysis on the impact that these determinants have on students achievement. Finally, this study revealed that Telesecundarias play an important role in helping economically disadvantaged students gain access to education in locations where no teachers or other school resources are available and are also positively associated with academic success.

Huang, Xiaorui. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 84-103). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.

Thesis (MComm)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The many and varied links between student socioeconomic status and educational outcomes have been well documented in the South African economics of education literature. The strong legacy of apartheid and the consequent correlation between education and wealth have meant that, generally speaking, poorer learners perform worse academically. The links between affluence and educational quality in South Africa can partially explain this outcome since the poor receive a far inferior quality of education when compared to their wealthier counterparts. This disadvantages them in the labourmarket and entrenches their poverty. This thesis uses the recent Southern and Eastern African Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ III) dataset for South Africa to answer three important questions: (1) Is South African primary education efficient? (2) Is South African primary education equitable? and (3) What are the main factors that have a significant effect on student mathematics and reading performance in Grade 6. The thesis shows that a high proportion of the country’s learners are functionally illiterate and functionally innumerate. The research confirms previous findings that socio-economic status, and particularly school socioeconomic status, is important when understanding student success or failure. Other factors which significantly affect student performance are homework frequency, grade repetition, and the availability of reading textbooks. In contrast, teacher-subject knowledge was found to have only a modest impact on Grade 6 performance. Policy interventions associated with the findings are also highlighted. The study concludes that South Africa is still a tale of two school sub-systems: one which is wealthy, functional and able to educate students, while the other is poor, dysfunctional, and unable to equip students with the necessary numeracy and literacy skills they should be acquiring in primary school. Finally, the thesis suggests that there are some options available to policy-makers which are expected to have a positive effect on learner performance. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die vele en diverse verbande tussen studente se sosio-ekonomiese status en onderwysuitkomste is goed gedokumenteer in die Suid-Afrikaanse literatuur oor die ekonomie van onderwys. Die sterk nalatenskap van apartheid en die gevolglike korrelasie tussen onderwys en rykdom beteken dat armer leerlinge in die algemeen akademies swakker vaar. Die verband tussen welvaart en onderwysgehalte in Suid-Afrika kan hierdie uitkoms gedeeltelik verklaar, omdat arm mense ʼn veel swakker gehalte van onderwys ontvang as rykes. Dit plaas hulle in ʼn swakker posisie in die arbeidsmark en bevestig daarmee hulle armoede. Die tesis gebruik die onlangse SACMEQ III datastel vir Suid-Afrika (SACMEQ is die akroniem vir die Southern and Eastern African Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality) om drie belangrike vrae te beantwoord: (1) Is Suid-Afrikaanse primêre skole doeltreffend? (2) Is Suid-Afrikaanse primêre onderwys regverdig verdeel? (3) Wat is die belangrikste faktore wat studente se wiskunde en leesvermoë in Graad 6 beduidend beïnvloed? Die tesis toon dat ʼn groot proporsie van die land se leerlinge funksioneel ongeletterd en ongesyferd is. Die navorsing bevestig vorige bevindinge dat sosio-ekonomiese status, en veral die sosioekonomiese status van die skoolgemeenskap, ʼn belangrike bepaler van studente se sukses is. Ander faktore wat studente se prestasie beduidend beïnvloed is hoe gereeld hulle huiswerk doen, of hulle die graad herhaal, en die beskikbaarheid van handboeke. In teenstelling daarmee is bevind dat onderwysers se vakkennis net ʼn beskeie impak op Graad 6 prestasie het. Daar is ook klem op beleidsingrypings wat uit die bevindinge spruit. Die studie kom tot die gevolgtrekking dat Suid- Afrikaanse onderwys steeds die storie van twee sub-stelsels is: een wat ryk is, goed funksioneer en in staat is om studente ʼn goeie opvoeding te bied, terwyl skole in die ander deel van die stelsel arm is, wanfunksioneel, en die vermoë ontbreek om studente toe te rus met die syfer- en leesvaardighede wat skole hulle behoort te bied. Ten slotte identifiseer die tesis opsies vir beleidmakers wat leerlinge se prestasie sou kon verbeter.