University admission quotas and high-school academic incentives: a case study of Brazil

This research project studies the indirect effects of aggressive affirmative action university admission policies on high-school student achievement in Brazil. The Capstone team analyzed the early stages of a quota policy that was implemented by public universities in the states of Rio de Janeiro and Bahia, in 2003. The team examined its effects on test performance among favored students, especially blacks and mulattos. First, the team performeded a difference-in-difference estimate, in which they found that an aggressive quota policy negatively affects favored students’ high-school efforts. The team then challenged this conclusion by introducing a synthetic control group. Findings were generally consistent with the previous results; however, the effect is reduced by the construction of a more appropriate counterfactual. These findings highlight the importance of considering externalities in policy design.