We examine student, teacher, and peer perceptions of effort, ability, performance, and self-confidence in Romania's highly tracked schools. We find that: (1) students just above a cutoff—tracked into high-achieving classes—have less favorable self-perceptions than those just below (“big-fish-little-pond” effects); (2) students perceive peers in their classes more favorably (“in-group bias”); (3) this bias is stronger in lower-achieving classes; (4) students perceive themselves more positively than others perceive them (“illusory superiority”); (5) this bias is stronger among lower-achieving students (“Krueger-Dunning effects”). In short, being tracked into lower-achieving classes does not appear to negatively affect self-perceptions.

This paper examines the selection of Mexican migrants to the United States using novel data with rich premigration characteristics that include permanent migrants, return migrants, and migrating households. Results indicate that Mexican migrants are more likely to be young, male, and from rural areas compared to nonmigrants, but they are similar to nonmigrants in cognitive ability and health. Migrants are selected from the middle of the education distribution. Male Mexican migrants are negatively selected on earnings, and this result is largely explained by differential returns to labor market skill between the United States and Mexico rather than proxies for differential costs of migration.

This paper examines the relative benefits of general education and vocational training during Romania's transition to a market economy. We examine a 1973 educational reform that shifted a large proportion of students from vocational training to general education. Using census and household survey data, we analyze the effect of this policy with a regression discontinuity design. We find that men affected by the policy are significantly less likely to work in manual or craft-related occupations but have similar levels of labor market participation and earnings compared to their counterparts unaffected by the policy. We conclude that differences in labor market returns between graduates of vocational and general schools are largely driven by selection.