The convergence of a digital transformation and a growing youth population in Africa represents an opportunity to harness digital and demographic dividends to boost human capital development. Higher education institutions play a central role in this process as the demographic dividend is accrued from the rise in the proportion of educated…

This dissertation addresses three separate questions in human capital and development economics. In the first chapter, I study how college admission concerns drive students' field choices in a field-specific college admission system. To study this question, I leverage a college admission policy reform in Ethiopia that sharply increased the…