Mixed but not scrambled gender gaps in single-sex classrooms

In this paper we study the effect on the math gender gap from attending a singlesex classroom in a coeducational school versus a coeducational classroom in a coeducational school. In contrast to the previous literature that has studied the effect of single-sex schools, the advantage of using single-sex classrooms is that we can calculate gender gaps within schools, and therefore the results are not confounded with other school characteristics that may correlate with the gender composition. We find that single-sex classrooms reduce the math gender gap by more than half, with no effect on the language gender gap. The effect is consistent with an increase in the math achievement of female students with no decrease in the achievement of male students. Moreover, this effect is not driven by teacher characteristics, but it seems to be driven by the gender composition of the classroom itself.I thank Fondecyt Inicio, project 11170968, and the Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies (CONICYT/FONDAP/15130009) for financial support. I would also like to thank Francisco Pino for his comments. The usual disclaimers apply

Essays on the Economics of Education

An important question that many educators face is how to motivate students to study. Many programs in the US and other countries give cash or award incentives to encourage students to exert more effort. In the following three essays, I explore different alternatives to raise student effort, which in turn should raise student achievement, measured in grades and standardized test scores.In my first essay, I propose that the grading system affects the incentives to exert effort among students. For this purpose, I build a model where students maximize their utility by choosing effort. I investigate how student effort changes when there is a change in the grading system from absolute grading to relative grading. I use data from college students in Chile who faced a change in the grading system to test the implications of my model. My model predicts that, for low levels of uncertainty: (i) total effort is higher with absolute grading; (ii) low ability students exert less effort with absolute grading, and; (iii) high ability students exert more effort with absolute grading. The data confirms that there is a change in the distribution of effort, although I don't find a change in the total level of effort.One results from the model discussed in the first essay is that high ability students exert higher effort under higher standards, but a high standard might have a negative impact on low ability students, who could give up and hence exert zero effort. So in my second essay, I explore whether higher grading standards have an effect on student achievement measured by standardized tests. Grading standards are measured as the school intercept in a regression of standardized test scores on grades. Using data from 8th graders in Chile, I find that higher standards have a positive average effect on standardized test scores. This effect is positive for the percentiles 25, 50 and 75 of the achievement distribution and is larger for the 25th percentile.In my third essay, I explore whether the gender of the teacher has an impact on student achievement and if this impact is different for boys and girls. Again, I use data from 8th graders in Chile. Within-student comparisons based on these data indicate thatassignment to a same-gender teacher significantly improves the achievement of girls but doesn't improve the achievement of boys. I find that the effect is larger for subjects that are traditionally considered male dominated, and for girls whose mothers have low levels of education, which is consistent with a role model hypothesis

Female participation in parliament. Are we ever going to converge to Scandinavia?

Despite the fact that female political participation has been steadily growing over time, women's representation in politics is substantially lower than their proportion in society. In this paper, we investigate the determinants of women's representation using a GMM system estimation to address the possible endogeneity. We employ a unique dataset that covers data for 130 countries from 1972 to 2005 in 7 different geographical regions to estimate a dynamic model for women's representation and calculate each region's steady state. In general, we find that the steady state values are above each region's current percentage of women in parliament; however, without changing other variables, no region significantly increases the percentage of women in parliament. Moreover, we find that 66-87% of the gap between each region's steady state with Scandinavia is explained by female secondary education enrollment, labor force participation, and political and economic rights.Comisión Nacional de Investigación Cientifica y Tecnológica (CONICYT) CONICYT FONDECYT 1130575 Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies ANID/FONDAP/15130009 Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez research unit from School of Busines

Does facial structure explain differences in students evaluations of teaching? the role of perceived dominance

Dominance is usually viewed as a positive male attribute, but this is not typically the case for women. Using a novel dataset of teacher evaluations in a school of Business and Economics of a selective university, we construct the face width-to-height ratio (fWHR) as a proxy for dominance to assess whether individuals with a higher ratio obtain better student evaluations of teaching. Our results suggest that a higher fWHR is associated with a better evaluation for male faculty, while the opposite is the case for females. These results are not due to differences in teachers’ productivity. Because teacher evaluations are relevant for pay and promotion, this might contribute to the underrepresentation of women in economics.We thank Osea Giuntella, Ana Nuevo-Chiquero and Esteban Puentes for their helpful comments. Funding: This work was supported by Fondecyt Inicio [Project 11170968], and the Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies (COES) [CONICYT/FONDAP/15130009]. Correspondence should be addressed to Valentina Paredes, Department of Economics, University of Chile, Diagonal Paraguay 257, Santiago, Chil