EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

The Impact of Peers on Academic Performance: Theory and Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Diego Carrasco-Novoa, Sandro D´ıez-Amigo and Shino Takayama ()
Additional contact information
Diego Carrasco-Novoa: School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Sandro D´ıez-Amigo: Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Sandro Díez-Amigo

No 644, Discussion Papers Series from University of Queensland, School of Economics

Abstract: We introduce a flexible theoretical framework to model the mechanics of peer effects in education. Then we take advantage of a natural experiment in order to illustrate how the proposed model can be used to gain additional empirical insights from reduced-form econometric analysis. Leveraging the exogenous variation in peer characteristics generated by the random assignment of freshman college students to their first semester class groups, we observe a negative impact on academic performance of secondary schoolmate presence and concentration in the first semester college classroom, suggesting that in the study context socialization was in overall terms distractive, and that the group structure increased socialization for all students. We also find some evidence of a negative impact of higher average admission scores on academic performance, suggesting that in the study context the direct positive impact of peer mean ability on academic performance was more than eclipsed by the negative effect of higher peer mean ability on self-confidence. Observed peer effects generally persist throughout the duration of undergraduate studies.

Date: 2021-04-29
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-net and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://economics.uq.edu.au/files/39746/644.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:qld:uq2004:644

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers Series from University of Queensland, School of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SOE IT ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-22
Handle: RePEc:qld:uq2004:644