Sund, Krister () (Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University)
Abstract
In this paper I use a rich dataset in order to observe each student over time in different subjects and courses. Unlike most peer studies, I identify the peers and the teachers that each student has had in every classroom. This enables me to handle the simultaneity and selection problems, which are inherent in estimating peer effects in the educational production function. I use a value-added approach with lagged peer achievement to avoid simultaneity and extensive fixed effects to rule out selection. To be specific, it is within-student across-subject variation with additional controls for time-invariant teacher characteristics that is exploited. Moreover, I identify students that are attending classes in which they have no peers from earlier education which otherwise could bias the result. I find positive peer effects for the average student but also that there is a non-linear dimension. Lower-achieving students benefit more from an increase in both mean peer achievement and the spread in peer achievement within the classroom than their higher-achieving peers.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Swedish Institute for Social Research in its series Working Paper Series with number
8/2007.
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)