IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/sofiwp/2010_010.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Peers, neighborhoods and immigrant student achievement - evidence from a placement policy

Author

Listed:
  • Åslund, Olof

    () (Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation (IFAU))

  • Edin, Per-Anders

    () (IFAU, UCLS)

  • Fredriksson, Peter

    () (Stockholm University, IZA, UCLS)

  • Grönqvist, Hans

    () (Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University)

Abstract

We examine to what extent immigrant school performance is affected by the characteristics of the neighborhoods that they grow up in. We address this issue using a refugee placement policy which provides exogenous variation in the initial place of residence in Sweden. The main result is that school performance is increasing in the number of highly educated adults sharing the subject’s ethnicity. A standard deviation increase in the fraction of high-educated in the assigned neighborhood raises compulsory school GPA by 0.9 percentile ranks. Particularly for disadvantaged groups, there are also long-run effects on educational attainment.

Suggested Citation

  • Åslund, Olof & Edin, Per-Anders & Fredriksson, Peter & Grönqvist, Hans, 2010. "Peers, neighborhoods and immigrant student achievement - evidence from a placement policy," Working Paper Series 10/2010, Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for Social Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:sofiwp:2010_010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sofi.su.se/content/1/c6/03/09/74/WP10no10.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Olof Åslund & John Östh & Yves Zenou, 2010. "How important is access to jobs? Old question--improved answer," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 10(3), pages 389-422, May.
    2. Per-Anders Edin & Peter Fredriksson & Olof Åslund, 2003. "Ethnic Enclaves and the Economic Success of Immigrants—Evidence from a Natural Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 118(1), pages 329-357.
    3. Card, David & Rothstein, Jesse, 2007. "Racial segregation and the black-white test score gap," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(11-12), pages 2158-2184, December.
    4. Eric A. Hanushek & John F. Kain & Steven G. Rivkin, 2009. "New Evidence about Brown v. Board of Education: The Complex Effects of School Racial Composition on Achievement," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(3), pages 349-383, July.
    5. James Heckman & Flavio Cunha, 2007. "The Technology of Skill Formation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 31-47, May.
    6. Per-Anders Edin & Peter Fredriksson & Olof Åslund, 2004. "Settlement policies and the economic success of immigrants," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 17(1), pages 133-155, February.
    7. Eric D. Gould & Victor Lavy & M. Daniele Paserman, 2004. "Immigrating to Opportunity: Estimating the Effect of School Quality Using a Natural Experiment on Ethiopians in Israel," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 119(2), pages 489-526.
    8. Åslund, Olof & Grönqvist, Hans, 2010. "Family size and child outcomes: Is there really no trade-off?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 130-139, January.
    9. Rachel M. Friedberg & Jennifer Hunt, 1995. "The Impact of Immigrants on Host Country Wages, Employment and Growth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 23-44, Spring.
    10. Joshua D. Angrist & Kevin Lang, 2004. "Does School Integration Generate Peer Effects? Evidence from Boston's Metco Program," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1613-1634, December.
    11. Marianne Bertrand & Erzo F. P. Luttmer & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2000. "Network Effects and Welfare Cultures," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 115(3), pages 1019-1055.
    12. Anna Piil Damm, 2009. "Ethnic Enclaves and Immigrant Labor Market Outcomes: Quasi-Experimental Evidence," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(2), pages 281-314, April.
    13. Michael A. Boozer & Alan B. Krueger & Shari Wolkon, 1992. "Race and School Quality Since Brown vs. Board of Education," Working Papers 681, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    14. Jonathan Guryan, 2004. "Desegregation and Black Dropout Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 919-943, September.
    15. Jeffrey R Kling & Jeffrey B Liebman & Lawrence F Katz, 2007. "Experimental Analysis of Neighborhood Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(1), pages 83-119, January.
    16. Cortes, Kalena E., 2006. "The effects of age at arrival and enclave schools on the academic performance of immigrant children," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 121-132, April.
    17. Anna Damm, 2009. "Determinants of recent immigrants’ location choices: quasi-experimental evidence," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 22(1), pages 145-174, January.
    18. Borjas, George J, 1995. "Ethnicity, Neighborhoods, and Human-Capital Externalities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 365-390, June.
    19. Hoyt Bleakley & Aimee Chin, 2004. "Language Skills and Earnings: Evidence from Childhood Immigrants," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(2), pages 481-496, May.
    20. Goel, Deepti & Lang, Kevin, 2009. "The Role of Social Ties in the Job Search of Recent Immigrants," CLSSRN working papers clsrn_admin-2009-12, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 02 Feb 2009.
    21. Philip Oreopoulos, 2003. "The Long-Run Consequences of Living in a Poor Neighborhood," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 118(4), pages 1533-1575.
    22. Lori A. Beaman, 2012. "Social Networks and the Dynamics of Labour Market Outcomes: Evidence from Refugees Resettled in the U.S," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 79(1), pages 128-161.
    23. Victor Lavy & M. Daniele Paserman & Analia Schlosser, 2008. "Inside the Black of Box of Ability Peer Effects: Evidence from Variation in the Proportion of Low Achievers in the Classroom," NBER Working Papers 14415, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Olof Åslund & Peter Fredriksson, 2009. "Peer Effects in Welfare Dependence: Quasi-Experimental Evidence," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(3).
    25. Michael Boozer & Alan Krueger & Shari Wolkon, 1992. "Race and School Quality Since Brown vs. Board of Education," Working Papers 681, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    26. Caroline Hoxby, 2000. "Peer Effects in the Classroom: Learning from Gender and Race Variation," NBER Working Papers 7867, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    27. Steven G. Rivkin, 2000. "School Desegregation, Academic Attainment, and Earnings," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 35(2), pages 333-346.
    28. Grogger, Jeff, 1996. "Does School Quality Explain the Recent Black/White Wage Trend?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(2), pages 231-253, April.
    29. David M. Cutler & Edward L. Glaeser, 1997. "Are Ghettos Good or Bad?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 112(3), pages 827-872.
    30. Corak, Miles, 2006. "Do Poor Children Become Poor Adults? Lessons from a Cross Country Comparison of Generational Earnings Mobility," IZA Discussion Papers 1993, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
    31. Olof Åslund & Dan-Olof Rooth, 2007. "Do when and where matter? initial labour market conditions and immigrant earnings," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(518), pages 422-448, March.
    32. Böhlmark, Anders, 2008. "Age at immigration and school performance: A siblings analysis using swedish register data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 1366-1387, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Grönqvist, Hans & Johansson, Per & Niknami, Susan, 2012. "Income inequality and health: Lessons from a refugee residential assignment program," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 617-629.
    2. Stephen Gibbons & Olmo Silva & Felix Weinhardt, 2013. "Everybody Needs Good Neighbours? Evidence from Students’ Outcomes in England," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 123, pages 831-874, September.
    3. Niknami, Susan, 2010. "Intergenerational Transmission of Education among Immigrant Mothers and their Daughters in Sweden," SULCIS Working Papers 2010:10, Stockholm University, Linnaeus Center for Integration Studies - SULCIS.
    4. Simen Markussen & Knut Røed, 2015. "Social Insurance Networks," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(4), pages 1081-1113.
    5. repec:oup:oxford:v:33:y:2017:i:4:p:541-571. is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Scott Duke Kominers & Alexander Teytelboym & Vincent P Crawford, 2017. "An invitation to market design," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 33(4), pages 541-571.
    7. Figlio, D. & Karbownik, K. & Salvanes, K.G., 2016. "Education Research and Administrative Data," Handbook of the Economics of Education, Elsevier.
    8. Hoogendoorn, Sander M. & van Praag, Mirjam C., 2012. "Ethnic Diversity and Team Performance: A Field Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 6731, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
    9. Marco Tonello, 2011. "Mechanisms of peer interactions between native and non-native students: rejection or integration?," Working Papers 2011/21, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    10. repec:bla:ausecr:v:50:y:2017:i:1:p:121-129 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Eliasson, Tove, 2014. "Immigrant entrepreneurship and the origin of bankers," Working Paper Series 2014:19, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    12. Topa, Giorgio & Zenou, Yves, 2015. "Neighborhood and Network Effects," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, Elsevier.
    13. Karin Hederos Eriksson & Randi Hjalmarsson & Matthew J. Lindquist & Anna Sandberg, 2016. "The importance of family background and neighborhood effects as determinants of crime," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 29(1), pages 219-262, January.
    14. Sanni N. Breining & Joseph J. Doyle, Jr. & David N. Figlio & Krzysztof Karbownik & Jeffrey Roth, 2017. "Birth Order and Delinquency: Evidence from Denmark and Florida," NBER Working Papers 23038, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Haliassos, Michael & Jansson, Thomas & Karabulut, Yigitcan, 2017. "Financial Literacy Externalities," Working Paper Series 333, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden), revised 01 Oct 2017.
    16. Jonathan T. Rothwell & Douglas S. Massey, 2015. "Geographic Effects on Intergenerational Income Mobility," Economic Geography, Clark University, vol. 91(1), pages 83-106, January.
    17. Holmlund, Helena, 2016. "Education and equality of opportunity: what have we learned from educational reforms?," Working Paper Series 2016:5, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    18. Michele Battisti & Giovanni Peri & Agnese Romiti, 2016. "Dynamic Effects of Co-Ethnic Networks on Immigrants' Economic Success," NBER Working Papers 22389, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Stephen Gibbons & Olmo Silva & Felix Weinhardt, 2010. "Do Neighbours Affect Teenage Outcomes? Evidence from Neighbourhood Changes in England," SERC Discussion Papers 0063, Spatial Economics Research Centre, LSE.
    20. Grönqvist, Hans & Niknami, Susan & Robling, P-O, 2015. "Childhood Exposure to Segregation and Long-Run Criminal Involvement - Evidence from the “Whole of Sweden” Strategy#," Working Paper Series 1/2015, Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for Social Research.
    21. Gustafsson, Björn Anders & Katz, Katarina & Österberg, Torun, 2016. "Why Do Some Young Adults Not Graduate from Upper Secondary School? On the Importance of Signals of Labour Market Failure," IZA Discussion Papers 9886, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
    22. Martin Nordin, 2013. "Immigrant School Segregation in Sweden," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 32(3), pages 415-435, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Peer effects; Ethnic enclaves; Immigration; School performance;

    JEL classification:

    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:sofiwp:2010_010. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Stefan Englund). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/sofsuse.html .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.