Peer Quality and the Academic Benefits to Attending Better Schools / Mark Hoekstra, Pierre Mouganie, Yaojing Wang.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hoekstra, Mark.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Mouganie, Pierre.

Wang, Yaojing.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w22337.

NBER working paper series no. w22337

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2016.

Summary:

Despite strong demand for attending high schools with better peers, there is mixed evidence on whether doing so improves academic outcomes. We estimate the cognitive returns to high school quality using administrative data on a high-stakes college entrance exam in China. To overcome selection bias, we use a regression discontinuity design that compares applicants barely above and below high school admission thresholds. Results indicate that while peer quality improves significantly across all sets of admission cutoffs, the only increase in performance occurs from attending Tier I high schools. Further evidence suggests that the returns to high school quality are driven by teacher quality, rather than peer quality or class size.

Notes:

Print version record

June 2016.