CInSt Research Seminar "Peer Effects in the Classroom: Evidence from a Natural Experiment": Bernardo Pincheira (HSE University)
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Bernardo Pincheira, postdoc CInSt, will present his job market paper "Peer Effects in the Classroom: Evidence from a Natural Experiment" on CInSt research seminar on October 3rd.
Abstract:
The causal effect of classmates on students’ academic performance, known as peer effects, is a question still open to debate in the field of education economics. In the paper I use the 8.8 earthquake that struck Chile in 2010 as a natural experiment for exogenous variation in peer composition, using the fact that the earthquake hit a random area of the country and forced some students to move into new schools for non-academic reasons. I use OLS and instrumental variables econometric specifications, with data of students observed in 2010, in affected or non-affected areas, to answer this question. My results show that the peer effects are positive and significant for students in both fourth and tenth grade. An increase of one standard deviation in the average score of the peers has an effect between 0.14 and 0.22 of a standard deviations in the student's own score. In addition, using IV quantile regressions, I find evidence of nonlinearities in the effect that potentially allow for within school sorting that might reduce inequality of performance between students and marginally increase average performance according to Monte Carlo simulations.
Full text
Date: October 3rd, 2019, 6:10-7:30 pm.
Location: K416, 11 Pokrovsky Boulevard, Moscow.
Working language: English.
All welcome. If you don't have an HSE ID, please register before 2:00 PM on October 3rd: cinst.hse.ru/register.
Date
3 October
18:10
Author
Bernardo Eugenio Pincheira Sarmiento
Address
K416, 11 Pokrovsky Boulevard, Moscow.