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

Avitabile, Ciro ; Bobba, Matteo ; Pariguana, Marco

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: SKILLS;    EMPLOYMENT;    UNIVERSITY DEGREE;    COLLEGE;    ITS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7427
RP-ID  :  WPS7427

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Parents and students from differentsocioeconomic backgrounds value differently schoolcharacteristics, but the reasons behind this preferenceheterogeneity are not well understood. In the context of thecentralized school assignment system in Mexico City, thisstudy analyzes how a large household income shock affectschoices over high school tracks exploiting the discontinuityin the assignment of the welfare program Oportunidades. Theincome shock significantly increases the probability ofchoosing the vocational track vis-a-vis the other moreacademic-oriented tracks. The findings suggest that thetransfer relaxes the financial constraints that preventrelatively low-ability students from choosing the schoolingoption with higher labor market returns.