Mauricio Romero
@marome1.bsky.social
1.7K followers 1.3K following 110 posts
Colombian in Mexico. Mountaineer, cyclist, climber. Associate Professor of Economics at ITAM. https://mauricio-romero.com/
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marome1.bsky.social
Note that our colleagues in the Business School are also hiring. It’s a fantastic, young department pushing frontier research with strong links to the Econ Department. Great people+ great energy: econjobmarket.org/positions/11...
#econsky #econjobmarket
marome1.bsky.social
I have such data for mexico... Not sure if you want it for the US or just generally speaking
marome1.bsky.social
We (Econ at ITAM) are hiring:econjobmarket.org/positions/11841
Pay is competitive with the US (in absolute terms), working language is English, virtually no service work, spend ~80% of your time in research, and you get to live in one of the coolest cities in the world.
#econsky
marome1.bsky.social
This is part of a larger agenda studying ECE in India.Expect more soon 🙂

+check out @petterberg.bsky.social, he is on the market and is fantastic;he was the driving force behind this paper: sites.google.com/view/petterb...

His JMP focuses on the long-run effects of outsourced schools in Sweden.
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Petter Berg
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marome1.bsky.social
Our themes relate to other great work:

RCTs: See work by Ganimian @karthik-econ.bsky.social and Walters on improving AWCs; by @joshtdean.bsky.social @seema.bsky.social on vouchers for private preschool

Facts: See ASER Centre Early Years and main ASER Reports
marome1.bsky.social
Our results provide a unified view of public vs private effects from preschool to the end of primary edu (+ links to inequality).

Substantively, it supports the recent focus on improving ECE systems in India.

New: understanding edu *markets* at this stage is important.
marome1.bsky.social
Villages with better public pre/primary schools also have better private sectors ➡️ unequal access to quality education across villages.

Why?

Maybe public sector quality induces better performance from the private sector (as Tahir, Bau,Das @nkarachiwalla.bsky.social and Khwaja find in Pakistan)?
marome1.bsky.social
Result 3: Private preschools outperform public ones in nearly ALL villages.

In primary schooling, this is more variable across geographies.

(Doing this correctly needs Bayesian shrinkage; details in paper)
marome1.bsky.social
Result 2: Richer kids are far more likely to attend private schools (+35pp in preschool, +39pp in primary). This explains ~60% of the SES test score gap at preschool ages (but none in primary, since private schools show no value-added there).
marome1.bsky.social
Result 1: Average value-added in private preschools larger than public AWCs by 0.74σ in math & 0.59σ in Tamil.

By contrast, private primary schools have NO positive value-added over government schools in these subjects (we did not test English)
marome1.bsky.social
Sample: Household-based panel data on ~19k students (age 3-10) across 215 villages. All children tested one-to-one. Age-appropriate tests linked on a common scale using IRT (using overlaps across ages). Items align with national goals for foundational skills.
marome1.bsky.social
Context: Tamil Nadu, nearly all kids 4-5y enroll in *some* preschool

Public: Mostly anganwadi centres. Free to attend, only 1 worker + 1 helper. In TN, ~38 mins/day on cognitive tasks.

Private: Nursery/KG, often linked to primary sch. Fee-charging, focus on early learning.
marome1.bsky.social
Early Childhood Education is central to India’s NEP and global edu goals. Our(@petterberg.bsky.social @singhabhi.bsky.social) new paper at EJ (@resmedia.bsky.social ky.social, bit.ly/4gOtoVV), shows private ECE outperform public options, explaining 60% of the SES gap. In primary, NO private premium.
marome1.bsky.social
The course was a huge success (> 80 people in person+>70 online). Huge thanks to @borusyak.bsky.social for the excellent lectures and to LACEA's IEN for making it possible. @ITAM is always happy to host and help with these events.
marome1.bsky.social
🚨Excited to announce a free mini-course on Modern Difference-in-Differences Designs, taught by @borusyak.bsky.social , hosted by ITAM & LACEA's Impact Evaluation Network! 🚨

🗓️ Sept 26–27, 2025
📍 ITAM's Santa Teresa campus, CDMX

Details 👇

#EconTwitter
Reposted by Mauricio Romero
singhabhi.bsky.social
Many interventions “work” in small trials but fail at scale

Also, EdTech often promises much, but delivers little

In a new paper (bit.ly/3JKLgVn)
@karthik-econ.bsky.social
& I show how personalized adaptive learning (PAL) software can sharply improve learning outcomes at scale🧵1/16
Reposted by Mauricio Romero
brenttoderian.bsky.social
“Over the past 20 years, Paris has undergone a major physical transformation, trading automotive arteries for bike lanes, adding green spaces and eliminating 50,000 parking spaces.

Part of the payoff has been invisible — in the air itself.”

Leadership, strategy, real action, common sense. #Paris
Paris said au revoir to cars. Air pollution maps reveal a dramatic change.
Air pollution fell substantially as the city restricted car traffic and made way for parks and bike lanes.
www.washingtonpost.com
marome1.bsky.social
Obviously, very basic but this really helped back in grad school:https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2014/01/21/everything-need-know-bayesian-statistics-learned-eight-schools/ and so now I force all my students using bayesian stuff to start with it
marome1.bsky.social
Some professional news: I'll be starting as a co-editor at the Journal of Development Economics. I'll do my best to be constructive, fair, and fast. Looking forward to reading what you are all up to... as I hope you are looking forward to my future referee requests #EconSky