Aspirations and Financial Decisions: Experimental Evidence from the Philippines David McKenzie, Aakash Mohpal and Dean Yang Abstract A randomized experiment among poor entrepreneurs tested the impact of exogenously inducing higher financial aspirations. In theory, raising aspirations could have positive effects by inducing higher effort, but could also reduce effort if unmet aspirations lead to frustration. […]
BREAD Working Paper No. 528, December 2017
Goals and Gaps: Educational Careers of Immigrant Children Michela Carlana, Eliana La Ferrara, Paolo Pinotti Abstract We study the educational choices of children of immigrants in a tracked school system. We first show that immigrant boys in Italy enroll disproportionately into vocational high schools, as opposed to technical and academically-oriented high schools, compared to natives […]
BREAD Working Paper No. 586, February 2021
Apart but Connected: Online Tutoring and Student Outcomes during the COVID-19 Pandemic Michela Carlana, Eliana La Ferrara Abstract In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the governments of most countries or- dered the closure of schools, potentially exacerbating existing learning gaps. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of an intervention implemented in Italian middle schools that provides […]