Exploring the black box of (cognitive and non-cognitive) ability peer effects
Type
dissertation project
Start Date
August 2022
Status
ongoing
Keywords
peer effects
cognitive and non-cognitive skills
simultaneous game.
Description
The project tries to establish (i) whether (and which type of own) abilities are affected by peer school performance, (ii) what the potential underlying mechanisms are, and (iii) who drives this influence.
To tackle these questions I run an empirical analysis and conceptualize part of the regularities observed in the data in a microeconomic model of social interactions.
Using within-school across-cohort variation, I find a significant and robust negative effect of peer school performance on individual cognitive abilities. No statistically significant effect could be found on non-cognitive skills. The heterogeneity analysis points out that this negative effect is heterogeneous with respect to self-perception of the own relative intelligence. Evidence from psychology suggests that the negative effect may reflect a side effect of competition on performance-oriented students, when exposed to high-performers.
To tackle these questions I run an empirical analysis and conceptualize part of the regularities observed in the data in a microeconomic model of social interactions.
Using within-school across-cohort variation, I find a significant and robust negative effect of peer school performance on individual cognitive abilities. No statistically significant effect could be found on non-cognitive skills. The heterogeneity analysis points out that this negative effect is heterogeneous with respect to self-perception of the own relative intelligence. Evidence from psychology suggests that the negative effect may reflect a side effect of competition on performance-oriented students, when exposed to high-performers.
Leader contributor(s)
Funder
Range
HSG Internal
Range (De)
HSG Intern
Eprints ID
248280