Publications and Accepted Work

1. The Impact of Public School Choice: Evidence from Los Angeles’ Zones of Choice

   Campos, Christopher, and Kearns, Caitlin

   Quarterly Journal of Economics 139(2), 2024

   Abs PDF BFI Research Brief AEI Podcast BFI Podcast The 74 Fordham Institute Marginal Revolution Good on Paper Podcast

   Does a school district that expands school choice provide better outcomes for students than a neighborhood-based assignment system? This paper studies the Zones of Choice (ZOC) program, a school choice initiative of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) that created small high school markets in some neighborhoods but left attendance-zone boundaries in place throughout the rest of the district. We study market-level impacts of choice on student achievement and college enrollment using a differences-in-differences design. Student outcomes in ZOC markets increased markedly, narrowing achievement and college enrollment gaps between ZOC neighborhoods and the rest of the district. The effects of ZOC are larger for schools exposed to more competition, supporting the notion that competition is a key channel. Demand estimates suggest families place substantial weight on schools’ academic quality, providing schools with competition-induced incentives to improve their effectiveness. The evidence demonstrates that public school choice programs have the potential to improve school quality and reduce neighborhood-based disparities in educational opportunity.

2. Independent Contracting, Self-Employment, and Gig Work: Evidence from California Tax Data

   Bernhardt, Annette, Campos, Christopher, Prohofsky, Allen, Ramesh, Aparna, and Rothstein, Jesse

   ILR Review 76(2), 2023

   Abs PDF Slides

   We use de-identified data from California personal income tax returns to measure the frequency and nature of independent contracting work in California. We identify independent contractors by the presence of a Schedule C on the tax return and/or the receipt of a Form 1099 information return. We estimate that 14.4% of California workers aged 18-64 in tax year 2016 had some independent contracting income; over half of these do not have traditional jobs generating W-2s and get all of their earnings from independent contracting. Workers with low earnings are significantly more likely to earn independent contracting income and to rely primarily or exclusively on that income. We explore the characteristics of independent contractors and their distribution across family type, geography, and industry.

Working Papers

1. College Major Choice, Payoffs, and Gender Gaps

   Campos, Christopher, Munoz, Pablo, Bucarey, Alonso, and Contreras, Dante

   Abs PDF

   This paper studies how college major choices shape earnings and fertility outcomes. Using administrative data that link students’ preferences, quasi-random assignment to majors, and post-college outcomes, we estimate the causal pecuniary and non-pecuniary returns to different fields of study. We document substantial heterogeneity in these returns across majors and show that such variation helps explain gender gaps in labor market outcomes: women place greater weight on balancing career and family in their major choices, and these preference differences account for about 30% of the gender earnings gap among college graduates. Last, we use our causal estimates to evaluate the effects of counterfactual assignment rules that target representation gaps in settings with centralized assignment systems. We find that gender quotas in high-return fields can significantly reduce representation and earnings gaps with minimal impacts on efficiency and aggregate fertility.

2. Social Interactions, Information, and Preferences for Schools: Experimental Evidence from Los Angeles

   Campos, Christopher

   Under Review

   Abs PDF PAP ZOC Video (English) ZOC Video (Spanish) Fordham Institute

   This paper measures parents’ beliefs about school and peer quality, how information about school and peer quality affects parents’ school choices, and how social interactions mediate these effects. In a field experiment, parents were randomly given information on school quality and peer quality, with varying proximity to other parents who received similar information. Results show that parents typically underestimate school quality and overestimate peer quality. When both parents and their neighbors received information, preferences shifted toward higher value-added schools. These findings suggest substantial information spillovers, leading to increased enrollment in effective schools. Enrollment in more effective schools leads to improved socio-emotional outcomes not captured by standardized exams. This evidence suggests that the intervention did more than alter educational pathways; it also played a critical role in shaping important developmental aspects of students’ lives.

3. Who Benefits from Remote Schooling? Self-selection and Match Effects

   Bruhn, Jesse, Campos, Christopher, Chyn, Eric, and Tran, Anh

   Under Review

   Abs PDF BFI Research Brief

   We study the distributional effects of remote learning using a novel approach that combines preference data from a conjoint survey experiment with administrative student records. The experimentally derived preference data allow us to account for selection into remote learning while also studying selection patterns and treatment effect heterogeneity. We validate the approach using random variation from school choice lotteries. Our analysis of the average impacts of remote learning finds negative effects on reading (-0.13 SD) and math (-0.14 SD) achievement. Notably, we find evidence of positive learning effects for children whose parents have the strongest demand for remote learning. Parental concerns related to bullying appear to be an important driver of the demand for remote learning. Moreover, we find that across-the-board positive impacts of remote learning on bullying outcomes operate as a compensating differential for negative impacts on learning. Our results suggest that an important subset of students who currently sort into post-pandemic remote learning benefit from expanded choice.

Work in Progress

1. Who Chooses and Who Benefits? The Limits of Decentralized Choice

   Bruhn, Jesse, Campos, Christopher, Chyn, Eric, and Vazquez, Antonia

   Abs

   Public school choice has expanded rapidly across U.S. districts, yet most rely on centralized assignment with voluntary, opt-in participation rather than mandatory universal enrollment. We study the consequences of this design in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the nation’s largest opt-in system. Using two decades of administrative records, oversubscribed admission lotteries, and quasi-experimental changes in school access, we report four findings. First, participants are disproportionately advantaged: applicants have higher baseline achievement and are less likely to be low-income. Second, lottery-based estimates show a strong negative proximity-based gradient in achievement effects. This proximity-based heterogeneity cannot be explained by observable treatment effect heterogeneity, pointing to unobserved demand factors. Third, to assess the empirical relevance of the association between demand and causal effects, we estimate a structural model of application, enrollment, and achievement using policy-induced variation in access to schools due to large expansions in the public school choice sector combined with lottery-based admissions for identification of the outcome model. We find corroborating evidence for negative selection on gains and further highlight high application costs and weak demand as central frictions. Importantly, the vertical differentiation of public school choice programs, shaped in part by charter competition, generates meaningful potential for achievement improvements. Finally, counterfactual policy analysis shows that reducing information frictions modestly broadens participation, but mandating participation produces substantial achievement gains by expanding access and filling unused capacity at effective schools. Together, these results suggest that expanding choice options marks progress, but whether choice improves outcomes depends on the details of market design: voluntary, decentralized systems limit the promise of school choice, while carefully structured assignment mechanisms can unlock broader benefits.

2. Parents’ Beliefs and Valuations of Academic and Socio-Emotional School Effectiveness

   Campos, Christopher, and Neilson, Christopher

   Draft available upon request

   Abs

   We design information modules that provide parents in Los Angeles with a rich environment to learn about different aspects of the school choice process. These include rich pedagogical lessons on school effectiveness, including academic and socio-emotional effectiveness. After teaching parents about the different dimensions of school effectiveness during in-person information sessions, we elicit their beliefs about schools in their choice set, experimentally estimate their beliefs about the production function, and experimentally estimate their preferences. Parents tend to underestimate both academic and socio-emotional effectiveness. Parents’ beliefs about the production function of each vary, with teacher quality being more important for academic effectiveness but unimportant for socio-emotional effectiveness. We find that parents tend to have approximately equal valuation over academic and socio-emotional effectiveness, underscoring the importance of the less-studied latter notion of school quality. Last, we simulate forthcoming school closure policies and quantify the welfare implications of policies that target only one aspect of quality.

3. Long Term Effects of Centralizing College Admissions: Evidence from Sequential Reforms in Finland

   Barrios-Fernández, Andrés, Campos, Christopher, Kaila, Marrti, Leppänen, Otto, and Virkola, Tuomo

   Abs

   In higher education, how does the transition from a decentralized market to a centralized clearinghouse affect student outcomes? We study a series of reforms that gradually converted Finland’s higher education system, allowing us to hone in on the marginal effects of different aspects common in the centralization bundle. The first reform introduced a single application–a reform similar to the United State’s Common App–reducing application costs while preserving institution’s control over admissions. The centralization coda occurred six years later in a reform that centralized admissions and required applicants to submit rank-ordered lists. Exploiting birth‐date–based eligibility thresholds in a difference‐in‐discontinuities design, together with a difference‐in‐differences comparison across cohorts with varying exposure, we find that the first reform boosted application rates, expanded the diversity of programs students apply to, modestly increased college graduation rates, and boosted earnings by roughly 4 percent at age 28. The centralization coda led to mechanical reduction in total number of programs students apply to—via a list length limit—while changing the composition of application portfolios and improved graduation rates years later. These findings suggest that both application frictions and the adoption of algorithms that determine “who gets what” are equally important determinants of students’ long-run labor market outcomes.

Other Publications

1. Understanding Which Prices Affect Inflation Expectations

   Campos, Christopher, McMain, Michael, and Pedemonte, Mathieu

   Economic Commentary (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland)

   Abs PDF

   Inflation expectations have an impact on one’s economic behavior. We show that the inflation expectations of professional forecasters and consumers are predicted by very different prices. While professional forecasters weigh prices similar to the consumer price index, consumers seem to focus on prices they see more often, such as those for food and new vehicles. These are also prices that have seen disproportionally high volatility since the onset of the pandemic. We argue that heterogeneity in the importance of component-specific inflation can have relevant economic implications and disproportionate effects on consumers’ inflation expectations that can, in turn, affect economic behavior.