This study evaluates the effects of specialized educational programs for linguistic minorities, focusing on bilingual indigenous schools in Mexico, on academic performance in math and Spanish and on bullying. These schools aim to provide instruction in native languages and create safe spaces for minorities who often face discrimination; however, they encounter significant implementation challenges. I develop and estimate a structural model of parents choosing primary schools for their children that incorporates bullying as a key social interaction depending on the school ethnic composition and heterogeneous human capital formation technologies. I find that bullying consistently negatively impacts academic performance (by 0.15-0.38 standard deviations) and that increasing the proportion of indigenous students in a school from 0% to 100% reduces bullying for indigenous students by 7.3 percentage points, without affecting non-indigenous students. However, I find that teachers in indigenous schools are on average less effective than teachers in regular schools in promoting academic achievement. Their effectiveness is mediated by their indigenous language proficiency. Parental school choice is influenced both by academic aspirations and bullying concerns. I use the estimated model to evaluate counterfactual policies. Enhancing resources in indigenous schools improves academic scores and reduces bullying by encouraging student shifts from regular to indigenous schools. Policies targeting ethnic-based bullying improve academic performance directly and indirectly by fostering a conducive learning environment and encouraging students to choose more productive regular schools. Eliminating indigenous schools enhance academic achievement and reduce bullying for indigenous students attending regular schools, thanks to the influx of indigenous peers. Therefore, indigenous schools need additional resources to address minorities' education needs; otherwise, they risk being counterproductive.

The limited market size of many small emerging economies is a key constraint to the growth of innovative small and medium enterprises. Exporting offers a potential solution, but firms may struggle to locate and appeal to foreign buyers. We conducted a six-country randomized experiment with 225 firms in the Western Balkans to test the effectiveness of 30 h of live group-based training and 5 h of one-on-one remote consulting in overcoming these constraints. Treated firms used techniques such as search engine optimization and improved Facebook content to increase their digital presence and better reach foreign customers. A year later, we find positive and significant impacts on the number of customers, and a significant intensive margin increase in export sales. Qualitative interviews suggest this improvement came from a combination of sector-specific advice on market expansion, and through an encouragement effect which gave entrepreneurs the confidence to try new sales strategies.

This study explores the impact of demographic diversity on teamwork in higher education. Using an experimental design, we find that diversity enhances team performance on creative tasks but hinders it on standard tasks. Additionally, diversity influences teamwork quality in a U-shaped pattern, suggesting that extremely homogeneous or heterogeneous groups collaborate more effectively, while moderately diverse groups face challenges. This paper contributes to understanding the distinct effects of diversity on team creativity and cohesion, emphasizing the role of demographic characteristics in shaping team dynamics.

This paper examines the effects of English language instruction on indigenous language abilities and cultural identity in Mexico. Leveraging a natural experiment where six Mexican states implemented English programs in public primary schools during the 1990s, we employ a staggered difference-in-differences design that exploits municipality by age-cohort variation in exposure to English instruction. Using data from Mexico's School and Population censuses, we find that exposure to English instruction led to large and significant positive effects on indigenous language abilities and cultural identity. The likelihood of understanding indigenous languages increased by approximately 3.5 percentage points, while the likelihood of speaking indigenous languages increased by just under 3 percentage points. Additionally, we observe a substantial 5 percentage point increase in self-identification as indigenous. These effects are remarkably large when compared to the overall prevalence in the studied states, where only 2.20% understand an indigenous language, and 1.40% speak an indigenous language and 8.26% self-identify as indigenous. Our findings reveal a complementary relationship between global and local language acquisition in multilingual educational settings. The magnitude of these effects represents a dramatic improvement in a context where indigenous language use has been declining. Our results have implications for language education policies in diverse linguistic landscapes, particularly in developing and multilingual countries implementing or considering trilingual education models that balance local, national, and global language instruction.

This paper investigates the impact of workplace harassment on various occupational outcomes, utilizing a novel empirical approach that combines reduced-form strategies with a structural equilibrium framework. Leveraging a newly available dataset from the collaboration between the Census Bureau and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), this study provides an unprecedented analysis of harassment claims across firms of varying sizes and industries. By exploiting sharp thresholds in Title VII coverage and the diffusion of the #MeToo movement, we employ regression discontinuity designs and event studies to estimate the causal effects of vicarious liability on firm demographics, wage gaps, and employee turnover. We then exploit the findings in a structural model that estimates a job market equilibrium. The newly integrated Census-EEOC data product, which has not been used in prior research offers new insights into the economic implications of workplace harassment.

This paper examines the causal effect of indigenous teacher availability on parental involvement within Mexico's bilingual education system. Indigenous schools often face shortages of indigenous educators. We exploit exogenous variation in the supply of indigenous teachers, stemming from the opening of new universities and training centers for indigenous educators, to investigate how increasing the proportion of indigenous teachers in these schools affects parental engagement. This variation influences the proportion of indigenous teachers but is plausibly unrelated to parental involvement through other channels. We combine administrative data on indigenous school characteristics, teacher backgrounds, and measures of parental engagement reported by surveys. Using a Marginal Treatment Effect (MTE) approach, we estimate heterogeneous impacts of increasing the share of indigenous teachers on parental involvement. This framework allows us to explore effect heterogeneity across different margins of indigenous teacher availability, and provide policy-relevant insights about the potential impacts of further expanding indigenous teacher supply. Our study contributes to the literature on culturally responsive education and the role of teacher characteristics in fostering school-community relationships.

While the bulk of existing research on stereotype threat predominantly examines its effects on individual performance, limited attention has been given to understanding its potential influence on group dynamics and collaborative efforts. To address this gap, this randomized controlled trial is designed to explore the impact of a stereotype threat intervention within the context of an Economics class, with a specific focus on enhancing the performance of female students, their confidence and sense of belonging. The intervention aims to counteract stereotype threat by providing an information-based intervention that emphasizes a prevailing belief: the majority of individuals believe that female-identifying students perform at the same level as others in Economics. The study employs a two-layer randomization strategy. In the initial layer, participants are subjected to random assignment, placing them either in the intervention group, which receives a randomized information treatment at the end of the baseline survey, or in the control group. Subsequently, in the second layer, participants are organized into small teams, comprising 3-4 members, to facilitate collaborative group work activities. Consequently, these groups will exhibit varying proportions of individuals who have undergone the treatment. The dual randomization process allows us to evaluate the causal impact of the intervention, both at the individual level and within the context of group performance.