Do Peers Affect Student Achievement in China’s Secondary Schools?

Weili Ding and Steven Lehrer ()

No 273517, Queen's Economics Department Working Papers from Queen's University - Department of Economics

Abstract: Peer effects have figured prominently in debates on school vouchers, desegregation, ability tracking and anti-poverty programs. Compelling evidence of their existence remains scarce for plaguing endogeneity issues such as selection bias and the reflection problem. This paper is among the first to firmly establish the link between peer performance and student achievement, using a unique dataset from China. We find strong evidence that peer effects exist and operate in a positive and nonlinear manner; reducing the variation of peer performance increases achievement; and our semi-parametric estimates clarify the tradeoffs facing policymakers in exploiting positive peers effects to increase future achievement.

Keywords: Financial Economics; International Development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 50
Date: 2006-03
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/273517/files/qed_wp_1047.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Do Peers Affect Student Achievement in China's Secondary Schools? (2007)
Working Paper: Do Peers Affect Student Achievement in China's Secondary Schools? (2006)
Working Paper: Do Peers Affect Student Achievement In China's Secondary Schools? (2005)
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:ags:quedwp:273517

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.273517

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Queen's Economics Department Working Papers from Queen's University - Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().