Bad Company: Understanding negative peer effects in college achievement

Ryan Brady (), Michael Insler () and Ahmed Rahman

European Economic Review, 2017, vol. 98, issue C, 144-168

Abstract: Existing peer effects studies produce contradictory findings, including positive, negative, large, and small effects, despite similar contexts. We explore these results using U.S. Naval Academy data covering a 17-year history of the random assignment of students to peer groups. Coupled with students’ limited discretion over freshman-year courses, our setting affords an opportunity to better understand peer effects in different social contexts. We find negative effects at the broader “company” level – students’ social and residential group – and positive effects at the narrower course-company level within small peer groups. We suggest that peer spillovers change direction because of differences in the underlying mechanism of peer influence.

Keywords: Peer effects; Social network formation; Academic achievement; Homophily (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D85 I21 I23 I26 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:98:y:2017:i:c:p:144-168

DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2017.06.013

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