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Does Helping John Help Sue? Evidence of Spillovers in Education

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  • Isaac M. Opper

Abstract

Does the impact of teachers extend beyond the students in their classroom? Using the natural transitions of students from multiple elementary schools into a single middle school, this paper provides a new method for isolating and quantifying peer spillover effects of teaching and shows that ignoring these spillovers underestimates a teacher's value by at least 30 percent. Because the spillovers also affect teacher value-added estimates, I develop a method of moments estimator of teacher value-added and show that accounting for the spillovers does not have a large impact on the ranking of teachers in New York City. I conclude by showing that the spillovers occur within groups of students who share the same race and gender, which suggests that social networks play a critical role in disseminating the effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Isaac M. Opper, 2019. "Does Helping John Help Sue? Evidence of Spillovers in Education," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(3), pages 1080-1115, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:109:y:2019:i:3:p:1080-1115
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.20161226
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Thijssen, Maximiliaan W.P. & Rege, Mari & Solheim, Oddny J., 2022. "Teacher relationship skills and student learning," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    2. Hinrichs, Peter, 2021. "What kind of teachers are schools looking for? Evidence from a randomized field experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 395-411.
    3. Berlinski, Samuel & Busso, Matias & Giannola, Michele, 2023. "Helping struggling students and benefiting all: Peer effects in primary education," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    4. Braun, Martin & Verdier, Valentin, 2023. "Estimation of spillover effects with matched data or longitudinal network data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 233(2), pages 689-714.
    5. Lina Zhang, 2020. "Spillovers of Program Benefits with Missing Network Links," Papers 2009.09614, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2023.
    6. Christine Mulhern & Isaac M. Opper, 2021. "Measuring and Summarizing the Multiple Dimensions of Teacher Effectiveness," CESifo Working Paper Series 9263, CESifo.
    7. Johnston, Andrew C., 2021. "Preferences, Selection, and the Structure of Teacher Pay," IZA Discussion Papers 14831, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Ingo E. Isphording & Ulf Zölitz, 2020. "The value of a peer," ECON - Working Papers 342, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    9. Guo, Yuhe & Li, Shaoping & Chen, Siwei & Tang, Yalin & Liu, Chengfang, 2022. "Health benefits of having more female classmates: Quasi-experimental evidence from China," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    10. Cai, Xiqian & Fan, Qingliang & Yuan, Congying, 2022. "The impact of only child peers on students’ cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    11. Antoine Deeb, 2021. "A Framework for Using Value-Added in Regressions," Papers 2109.01741, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2021.
    12. Michael Dinerstein & Rigissa Megalokonomou & Constantine Yannelis, 2020. "Human Capital Depreciation," Working Papers 2020-146, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J45 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Public Sector Labor Markets
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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