Search

In their recent paper “(Un)informed College and Major Choice: Evidence from Linked Survey and Administrative Data,” Hastings, Neilson, Ramirez, & Zimmerman (2016) provide an informal costly-information model, linking family background to students’ beliefs about educational costs and benefits. They verify predictions of their model using a data set of beliefs about college institutions and majors among Chilean college applicants and students. I test some of those same predictions using a data set of beliefs about college institutions and different levels of college education among high school students in the United States. I verify their predictions, with some exceptions, supporting the use of their costly-search model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies spillovers from older to younger siblings in higher education choices. Exploiting discontinuous admission rules generated by Chile's centralized admission system to higher education, we identify strong sibling spillovers in the choice of college. Having an older sibling enroll in a given college increases by 42% the probability of enrolling in that institution. In contrast, we find no effect on major choices. We show evidence suggesting that sibling spillovers in college choice are mainly driven by siblings deriving benefits from attending college together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]