Peer Effects in European Primary Schools: Evidence from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study

Andreas Ammermueller and Jörn-Steffen Pischke

Journal of Labor Economics, 2009, vol. 27, issue 3, pages 315-348

Abstract: We estimate peer effects for fourth graders in six European countries. The identification relies on variation across classes within schools, which we argue are formed roughly randomly. The estimates are much reduced within schools compared to the standard ordinary least squares (OLS) results. This could be explained either by selection into schools or by measurement error in the peer variable. Correcting for measurement error, we find within-school estimates close to the original OLS estimates. Our results suggest that the peer effect is modestly large, measurement error is important in our survey data, and selection plays little role in biasing peer effects estimates. (c) 2009 by The University of Chicago.

Date: 2009

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/603650 link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucp:jlabec:v:27:y:2009:i:3:p:315-348

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JOLE/order1.html

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Labor Economics is edited by Derek A. Neal

More articles in Journal of Labor Economics from University of Chicago Press
Address: The University of Chicago Press, Journals Division, P.O. Box 37005 Chicago, IL 60637
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().