Selected Work in Progress

Parental Education Spillovers and School Outcomes: Evidence from Siblings

2024

Author(s): Gonçalo Lima, Miguel Nunes

Abstract: We study the effect of exposure to peers with college-educated parents on the school outcomes of children from less educated households. For identification, we exploit within-family-by-year variation to control for the significant non-random sorting of parents into schools, and time-varying shocks to the family environment. We use rich administrative data from Portugal, a school system with some of the largest gaps in educational attainment by children's socio-economic status among OECD countries. We find that moving a student from the tenth to the 90th percentile in the distribution of exposure to children with college-educated parents is equivalent to about a fifth of the gap in grade repetition by parental education. In middle school, we also find that a standard deviation increase in exposure increases GPA by 2.6 percent of a standard deviation, and reduces the proportion of failed school subjects by 3.4 percent of a standard deviation. Our findings suggest that policies curtailing segregation across schools based on parental education can play an important role in helping to close large achievement gaps between these groups.

Presentations (including scheduled): SOLE 2024 (May 2024); Junior Economists Meeting Milan (May 2024); EALE 2024 (September 2024)

Grading Leniency and Educational Choices: Evidence from a Blind Grading Regime

2023

Author(s): Gonçalo Lima

Abstract: How do positive signals of academic ability change educational choices and future performance? I study the consequences of receiving a higher grade in a national standardized test on students' outcomes. For identification, I exploit the random assignment of graders to anonymized tests in the end of middle school, using administrative data from Portugal. First, I show that there is substantial grade manipulation in this blind grading context, consistent with graders being lenient. I then use bunching methods to identify the plausibly causal effect of leniency on students' choices. I find that low performers who benefit from lenient grading are significantly less likely to repeat the same school grade, and encouraged to enrol in a more demanding high school track. However, I cannot reject that there is no impact on academic achievement in the medium- and long-term. Finally, although graders do not observe test takers characteristics, I show that leniency in grading is selective on characteristics that may be indirectly inferred from the test. In particular, girls are marginally more likely to be bumped up.

Presentations (including scheduled): 2024 Lisbon Economics and Statistics of Education (January 2024); EUI Microeconometrics Working Group (March 2023)

Other Work in Progress

Job Sharing and Productivity: Evidence from Healthcare

Author(s): Gonçalo Lima, Kathrine Lorentzen

Gender and Screening: Evidence from a Medical Licensing Exam Reform

Author(s): Gonçalo Lima

Publications

What Matters for the Decision to Study Abroad? A Lab-in-the-Field Experiment in Cape Verde

Journal of Development Economics, 173, March 2025, 103401

Author(s): Catia Batista, David M. Costa, Pedro Freitas, Gonçalo Lima, Ana B. Reis

Working Papers

What Matters for the Decision to Study Abroad? A Lab-in-the-Field Experiment in Cape Verde

2024

Author(s): Catia Batista, David M. Costa, Pedro Freitas, Gonçalo Lima, Ana B. Reis

No Country for Young Kids? The Effects of School Starting Age throughout Childhood and Beyond

2022

Author(s): Gonçalo Lima, Ana B. Reis, Luís Catela Nunes, Maria C. Seabra