The Good, the Bad, and the Average: Evidence on Ability Peer Effects in Schools

Lavy, Victor; Silva, Olmo; Weinhardt, Felix

doi:10.1086/663592

“…The first is the effects of peer achievement and socioeconomic background on individuals' educational performance (see e.g. Ammermueller and Pischke, 2009;Brunello et al, 2010;Calvó-Armengol et al, 2009;Gibbons and Telhaj, 2008;Lavy et al, 2012b;Lin, 2010;Sacerdote, 2001;Vigdor and Nechyba, 2007;Zimmerman, 2003). Most of the existing literature has attempted to use natural or quasi-experimental settings or fixed effects models to investigate peer effects in the class or grade (Ammermueller and Pischke, 2009;Booij et al, 2017;Lavy et al, 2012b), in dorms (Brunello et al, 2010;Sacerdote, 2001;Zimmerman, 2003) and in military colleges (Carrell et al, 2013;Lyle, 2007).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do migrant students affect local students’ academic achievements in urban China?

Wang

¹

,

Cheng

²

,

Smyth

³

2018

Economics of Education Review

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may AbstractWe examine the educational spillover effects of migrant students on local students' academic achievement in public middle schools in urban China. The identification of peer effects relies on idiosyncratic variation in the proportion of migrant students across classes within schools. We find that the proportion of migrant students in each class has a small, and positive, effect on local students' test scores in Chinese, but has no significant effect on math and English test scores. We also find considerable evidence of heterogeneity in the effects of the proportion of students in the class on local students' test scores across subsamples. Local students toward the bottom of the achievement distribution, local students enrolled in small classes and local students enrolled in lower-ranked schools benefit most in terms of test scores from having a higher proportion of migrant students in their class. Our findings have important policy implications for the debate in China about the inclusion of migrant students in urban schools, and for the assignment of educational resources across schools.

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“…Bifulco et al (2011) andPatacchini et al (2012) show that better peers also increase the likelihood of going to college. Studies that nd a non-linear e ect or zero e ect are Lavy et al (2012), Koppensteiner (2012), Carrell et al (2013, Burke & Sass (2013), Pop-Eleches & Urquiola (2013), Abdulkadiroglu et al (2014, Feld & Zölitz (2014), Tincani (2015) and Tatsi (2015).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Big Fish in a Small Pond: Ability Rank and Human Capital Investment

Elsner

¹

,

Isphording

²

2017

Journal of Labor Economics

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. We study the impact of a student's ordinal rank in a high school cohort on educational attainment several years later. To identify a causal effect, we compare multiple cohorts within the same school, exploiting idiosyncratic variation in cohort composition. We find that a student's ordinal rank significantly affects educational outcomes later in life. If two students with the same ability have a different rank in their respective cohort, the higher-ranked student is significantly more likely to finish high school, attend college, and complete a 4-year college degree. These results suggest that low-ranked students under-invest in their human capital even if they have a high ability compared to most students of the same age. Exploring potential channels, we find that students with a higher rank have higher expectations about their future career, a higher perceived intelligence, and receive more support from their teachers. NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARYParents often believe that high-ability classmates have a positive influence on their children, and potential classmates are often a decisive factor for choosing a school. In this paper, we show that having high-ability peers in school is not beneficial for everyone. A student who is surrounded by peers that are smarter than herself has a low ordinal rank within her peer group, which may come with some disadvantages. While she may benefit from studying with smarter peers, she may experience a disadv...

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“…See the following: Lavy, Silva and Weinhardt [2012], Gibbons, Silva and Weinhardt [2013], and Weinhardt [2014]. Using the expulsion of scientists that occured under Nazi-ruled Germany, Waldinger [2012] also find no evidence of peer effects on the productivity of researchers.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

In Good Company Neighborhood Quality and Female Employment

Bechara

¹

,

Eilers

²

,

Paloyo

³

2014

SSRN Journal

0

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in

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The Good, the Bad, and the Average: Evidence on Ability Peer Effects in Schools

Cited by 240 publications

References 36 publications

Do migrant students affect local students’ academic achievements in urban China?

Do migrant students affect local students’ academic achievements in urban China?

A Big Fish in a Small Pond: Ability Rank and Human Capital Investment

In Good Company Neighborhood Quality and Female Employment

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