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Zach Weingarten
Local Signals in a Global Tournament: Information Frictions, Optimism, and College Completion
Families frequently receive local signals about children’s skills, such as class rank in high school, yet the college market in which most students ultimately compete is much broader. Using nationally-representative data, we show that student effort, parental investment, and beliefs about… more →
A Dynamic Model of the Economic Returns to Adolescent Social Skills
Topics: Families and CommunitiesSocial-skill formation during adolescence depends on peer environments, but those environments are equilibrium outcomes shaped by individual choices. To account for this endogeneity, we develop and estimate a dynamic model in which parents invest in adolescents, adolescents choose whether to… more →
Information Frictions and Teacher Turnover
Many decentralized matching markets experience high rates of instability due to information frictions. This paper analyzes these frictions in a particularly unstable U.S. market, the labor market for first-year school teachers. We develop and estimate a dynamic, partial equilibrium model of… more →
The Unintended Consequences of Academic Leniency
In response to widening achievement gaps and increased demand for post-secondary education, local and federal governments across the US have enacted policies that have boosted high school graduation rates without an equivalent rise in student achievement, suggesting a decline in academic… more →