Miri Stryjan

Published · 2026

Disconnected: The Unequal Impact of Online Learning on Minority Students

with Naomi Gershoni

European Economic Review, p.105356.

Online instruction holds the promise of expanding access to education for disadvantaged groups, yet it often deepens existing performance gaps. This study examines its impact on high-stakes exam outcomes, focusing on mechanisms driving differential effects for minority students. We leverage rich administrative data on students from five consecutive cohorts in 31 Israeli vocational colleges and the abrupt transition to online instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic. A key advantage of our setting is that exams were held in-person and graded centrally, ensuring comparability to pre-pandemic performance. Using a difference-in-differences design that compares outcomes within students and across cohorts, we find significant declines in both exam attendance and demonstrated knowledge following the switch to online instruction. These effects are not explained by local infection rates or childcare responsibilities, and are especially pronounced among Arabic-speaking minority students, regardless of their socioeconomic status. Drawing on variation in internet infrastructure, residential crowdedness, language of instruction, and prior academic performance, we show that poor internet access is a central mechanism underlying the adverse effects among minority students. For majority-group students, negative effects are concentrated among weaker students, suggesting widening disparities within the majority group. For minority students, the difference by prior achievement is not statistically significant, and if anything, the drop is larger for higher achievers.

Published · 2025

SMEs and Workers during Crises: Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic in Uganda

with Selim Gulesci, Francesco Loiacono, and Andreas Madestam

AEA Papers and Proceedings, Vol. 115, pp. 345–350.

We use a five-year panel of Ugandan SMEs, supplemented with phone-survey data from August 2020, to analyze how the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic affected profits and employment. Most firms had employees, enabling us to investigate whether — and how — the crisis reshaped SMEs' job-creation capacity, with particular focus on gender differences. Profits fell substantially for all firms, yet male entrepreneurs paradoxically expanded their workforce — suggesting that hiring under crisis may arise partly from social obligations. Meanwhile, female entrepreneurs bore heavier caregiving loads and relied more on extended family support, potentially hampering future growth through added caregiving and reciprocal obligations.

Published · 2023

Do Deadlines Affect Project Completion? Experimental Evidence from Israeli Vocational Colleges

with Naomi Gershoni

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 205, pp. 359–375.

We study a large-scale intervention aimed at increasing graduation rates in Israeli vocational colleges. In this context, the main reason for low graduation rates has been found to be the failure of students to complete the required final project. This may result from procrastination which is prevalent among students in many settings. To address procrastination, we introduce a deadline for final project defense in randomly selected departments while control group departments maintain the practice of scheduling defense dates on a rolling basis. We compare student performance over time in treated and control departments in a difference-in-differences framework and find no effect of deadlines on project defense or on graduation rates. A potential explanation for these findings is that there are other constraints faced by students, such as academic difficulties or a low perceived value of the diploma, which are not alleviated by the deadline. Using administrative and survey data, we find that deadlines have no effect even when the alternative constraints are not binding.

Published · 2020

Preparing for Genocide: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Rwanda

with Evelina Bonnier, Jonas Poulsen, and Thorsten Rogall

Journal of Development Economics, 147, p. 102533.

This paper shows how state-controlled community meetings can facilitate large-scale mobilization of civilians into violence. We analyze a Rwandan community program that required citizens to participate in community work and political meetings every Saturday in the years before the 1994 genocide. We exploit cross-sectional variation in meeting intensity induced by exogenous weather fluctuations, and find that a one standard-deviation increase in the number of rainy Saturdays before the genocide decreased civilian violence by 17 percent. We find evidence that the meetings provided an arena for local elites to spread propaganda and bring people together. In research and policy, community meetings are often treated as positive, community building forces. Our results indicate that they can also lead to negative outcomes. This should, however, not suggest that such meetings are inherently destructive. Instead, community meetings should be understood as powerful tools and their effects depend on the political intention of the leaders.

Published · 2020

Loan Contract Structure and Adverse Selection: Survey Evidence from Uganda

with Christian Ahlin, Selim Gulesci, and Andreas Madestam

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 172, pp. 180–195.

While adverse selection is an important theoretical explanation for credit rationing it is difficult to quantify empirically. Many studies measure the elasticity of credit demand of existing or previous borrowers as opposed to the population at large; other studies use cross- sectional approaches that may confound borrower risk with other factors. We circumvent both issues by surveying a representative sample of microenterprises in urban Uganda and by measuring their responses to multiple hypothetical contract offers, varying in interest rates and collateral requirements. The two seminal theories on selection provide contradicting predictions following a change in the contractual terms. Under adverse selection, a lower interest rate or a lower collateral obligation should increase take up among less risky borrowers. By contrast, advantageous selection implies that take up should increase among the riskier borrowers. We test these two predictions by examining if firm owners respond to changes in the interest rate or the collateral requirement and whether higher take up varies by firms' risk type. We find support for the presence of adverse selection as contracts with lower interest rates or lower collateral obligations increase hypothetical demand – especially for less risky firms. Our results imply that changes to the standard loan product available to microenterprises may have substantial effects on credit demand.

Published · 2019

Leader Selection and Service Delivery in Community Groups: Experimental Evidence from Uganda

with Erika Deserranno and Munshi Sulaiman

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 11(4), pp. 240–267.

In developing countries, NGOs and Governments often rely on local community-based groups for the delivery of financial and public services. This paper provides causal evidence of how the design of rules used for group leader selection affects leader identity and shapes group service delivery. In collaboration with the NGO BRAC, we randomly assigned newly-formed Savings and Loan Groups to select their leaders using either (i) a procedure in which final outcomes are decided in a public discussion or (ii) a procedure in which final outcomes are decided in a private vote. Leaders selected with a private vote are found to be less positively selected on socioeconomic characteristics than those elected in the public procedure, and at the same time more representative of regular group members. Furthermore, selecting more representative leaders—through a private vote—results in groups that are more inclusive towards poor members by giving them more credit and retaining them longer. Three years after their creation, private vote groups are more inclusive than public discussion groups, without being less economically efficient.