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Sebastián Otero

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Graduate Student Research Fellowship | 2018 - 2019 Academic Year

Affirmative Action, Ability and Mismatch

Sebastián Otero’s dissertation studies the distributional and welfare consequences of large-scale affirmative action policy in college education. In particular, he examines regulation passed in Brazil in 2012 mandating all public universities to increase the number of reserved seats for students from public high schools to 50 percent of the total number of incoming students. Otero’s research design exploits admission cutoffs at heavily over-subscribed federal universities to estimate the policy effects on the marginally benefited and marginally displaced student. Using an instrumental variable approach, he leverages random variation in university entrance exam scores to evaluate the implications for individuals away from the discontinuities.


Sebastián Otero, Department of Economics

Sebastián Otero

Sebastián Otero is a PhD student in economics at Stanford University. His research interests include econometrics and public economics in developing countries. Before entering the PhD program, Otero worked as a research associate for J-PAL LAC, developing projects in Chile, Peru, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Originally from Chile, Otero holds a BA and MA in economics from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

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