About Me

I am Jaime Polanco-Jiménez, a PhD student in Economics at Leuven Economics of Education Research; Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, and the Department of Economics at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. My research bridges development and Economics of Education to address critical challenges in human capital accumulation. I am particularly interested in exploring how technology, gender dynamics, and resource allocation influence educational outcomes.

Job Market Paper

The Double-Edged Sword of AI: Evidence on Student Engagement from the Classroom

This paper investigates how the design of an AI educational technology affects student outcomes. Using a large-scale randomized trial with 2,440 secondary students in Belgium, I find that the design of AI chatbots has a powerful, non-monotonic effect on student engagement. A chatbot tailored to the local curriculum increased module completion by 10 percentage points, while a generic chatbot decreased it by 5 percentage points relative to traditional instruction. This effect on engagement is the primary mechanism driving learning: offering the tailored chatbot produces robust gains in knowledge, particularly for students on the margin of engagement. The results show that deep curricular integration is essential for solving the first-order challenge of student engagement in educational technology.

View Paper (PDF)

Research Highlights

My doctoral research delves into the following key areas:

  • AI-Powered Learning Support: Investigating how AI can mitigate teacher shortages and enhance student learning outcomes, particularly in resource-constrained environments.
  • Gender Composition Effects: Analyzing the impact of gender ratios in educational settings on student performance and gender equity.
  • Infrastructure Interventions: Evaluating the effectiveness of infrastructure improvements on educational access and quality.
  • Natural Resource Impacts: Examining the influence of the oil industry on educational outcomes and human capital development in resource-rich regions.

I am fortunate to be advised by Professor Gloria Bernal and Professor Kristof De Witte, whose expertise has been instrumental in shaping my research agenda.

AI Paper Analyzer

Here you can interact with an AI agent I deployed. Feel free to test it out! (Use as user: JaimeBot)