Results

CEP discussion paper

An Olympic opportunity

We use a unique natural experiment in which families were randomly selected to live in the Olympic Village, constructed for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, to assess the impact of improved neighbourhood conditions on acad...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Peer effects and worker visibility in team production: evidence from NBA rookies

This paper examines how peer quality impacts early career visibility, productivity, and longterm earnings in team based settings. While high ability peers can generate positive spillovers, they may limit opportunities fo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The lifecycle of judicial bias

How does judicial bias arise and persist in the legal system? We trace the lifecycle of judicial bias in India's criminal courts, leveraging the quasi-random assignment of judges to courts and cases. We first document su...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Policy Modeling:

Social policy gone bad educationally: unintended peer effects from transferred students

What is the impact of an increase of lower-ability students in a university class? We examine a natural experiment in which students from large, low-income families had the chance to transfer to academic programs at a lo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Random placement but real bias

Many studies exploit the random placement of individuals into groups such as schools or regions to estimate the effects of group-level variables on these individuals. Assuming a simple data generating process, we show th...Read more...

Journal article

Oxford Review of Economic Policy:

Green transitions: complementarities, multiple equilibria, and tipping points

With strategic complementarities stemming from peer effects in demand or technological spillovers, propagation and amplification mechanisms increase the effectiveness of climate policies. This suggests that climate goals...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gender, careers and peers' gender mix

We use Italian Social Security data to study how the gender composition of a worker's professional network influences their career development. By exploiting variation within firms, occupations, and labor market entry co...Read more...

Journal article

The Review of Economics and Statistics :

Class rank and long-run outcomes

This paper considers an unavoidable feature of the school environment, class rank. What are the long-run effects of a student's ordinal rank in elementary school? Using administrative data on all public-school students i...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Peer pressure and manager pressure in organisations

We study the interaction between horizontal (peer) and vertical (manager) social factors in workers' motivation. In our setting, individuals work using open-plan desks. Using a natural experiment, we identify a sharp inc...Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

Teacher effectiveness and classroom composition: understanding match effects in the classroom

This paper provides evidence of match effects in the teacher labour market by considering how teacher effectiveness varies by classroom composition. We combine random assignment of teachers with rich measures of teaching...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Social policy gone bad educationally: unintended peer effects from transferred students

What is the impact of an increase of lower-ability students in a university class? We examine a natural experiment from Greece in which students from large, low-income families had the chance to transfer to academic prog...Read more...

Journal article

Small Business Economics:

Homophily and peer influence in early-stage new venture informal investment

Abstract: Conceptualising early-stage new venture informal investors as co-entrepreneurs whose actions are socially embedded, we examine the role of social influence and how it interplays with entrepreneurial experience ...Read more...

Journal article

Management Science:

Stars and brokers: knowledge spillovers among medical scientists

This paper estimates the heterogeneity in peer effects among research scientists in terms of network position. I propose a new measure, brokerage degree, that determines the extent to which a scientist depends on a coaut...Read more...

Journal article

Economics of Education Review:

Who teaches the teachers? A RCT of peer-to-peer observation and feedback in 181 schools

This paper evaluates a widely used, low stakes, teacher peer-to-peer observation and feedback program under Randomized Control Trial (RCT) conditions. Half of 181 volunteer primary schools in England were randomly select...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

O brother, where start thou? Sibling spillovers on college and major choice in four countries

Family and social networks are widely believed to influence important life decisions but identifying their causal effects is notoriously difficult. Using admissions thresholds that directly affect older but not younger s...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

Peer Effects and Social Influence in Post-16 Educational Choice

This paper investigates the impact of peers' ability on an individual's post-compulsory educational choices in terms of whether they select an academic route or a vocational route. In order to overcome the common problem...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

The causal effect of secondary school peers on educational aspirations

This paper uses data from the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE) to investigate how the educational aspirations of secondary school pupils in Year 9 (at age 14) and in Year 11 (at age 16) are influence...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Teacher effectiveness and classroom composition

This paper studies how the effectiveness of teachers varies by classroom composition, combining random assignment of teachers with rich measures of teaching practices based on a popular teacher-evaluation protocol. We fi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Who teaches the teachers? A RCT of peer-to-peer observation and feedback in 181 schools

It is well established that teachers are the most important in-school factor in determining student outcomes. However, to date there is scant robust quantitative research demonstrating that teacher training programs can ...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

Peer Effects and Social Influence in Post-16 Educational Choice

This paper investigates whether the educational choices that young people make after the completion of their GCSEs (at age 16) are influenced by their peers. More specifically, it takes advantage of the variation in peer...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Urban Economics:

Sorting and agglomeration economies in French economics departments

Are agglomeration and peer effects at stake in academic research? To tackle this question, we study how departments? characteristics affect the quantity and quality of academics? publications in economics in France, cont...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

When pressure sinks performance: evidence from diving competitions

Tournaments are designed to enhance participants? effort and productivity. However, ranking near the top may increase psychological pressure and reduce performance. We empirically study the impact of interim rank on perf...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Top of the class

Boys may be better off not going to the school with high-performing peers, according to research by Richard Murphy and Felix Weinhardt, which explores how much impact there is on later confidence and exam results from wh...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The importance of rank position

We find an individual?s rank within their reference group has effects on later objective outcomes. To evaluate the impact of local rank, we use a large administrative dataset tracking over two million students in England...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Labor Economics:

The good, the bad, and the average: evidence on ability peer effects in schools

We study ability peer effects in English secondary schools using data on four cohorts of students taking age-14 national tests and measuring peers' ability by prior achievements at age 11. Our identification is based on ...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Does the Rotten Child Spoil His Companion? Spatial Peer Effects Among Children in Rural India

This paper identifies the effect of neighborhood peer groups on childhood skill acquisition using observational data. We incorporate spatial peer interaction, defined as a child's nearest geographical neighbors, into a p...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

To Join or Not to Join? Factors Influencing Employee Share Plan Membership in a Multinational Corporation

Many firms encourage employees to own company stock through share plans that subsidize the price at favorable rates, but even so many employees do not buy shares. Using a new survey of employees in a multinational with a...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Peer Effects in Science - Evidence from the Dismissal of Scientists in Nazi Germany

This paper analyzes peer effects among university scientists. Specifically, it investigates whether the number of peers and their average quality affects the productivity of researchers in physics, chemistry, and mathema...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Peer Effects in European Primary Schools: Evidence from PIRLS

We estimate peer effects for fourth graders in six European countries. The identification relies on variation across classes within schools. We argue that classes within primary schools are formed roughly randomly with r...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Peer Effects and Pupil Attainment: Evidence from Secondary School Transition

It is a common belief that children will thrive if educated amongst better class and schoolmates. It is a belief that guides many parents in their choice of school, and has important implications for policy on school cho...Read more...