The Long-Run Effects of Peers on Mental Health (with Lukas Kiessling), The Economic Journal 133, no. 649 (2023): 281-322.
[ Abstract | Draft | Published Link | Replication Package | Media ]
This paper studies how peers in school affect students' mental health. Guided by a theoretical framework, we find that increasing students’ relative ranks in their cohorts by one standard deviation improves their mental health by 6\% of a standard deviation conditional on own ability. These effects are more pronounced for low-ability students, persistent for at least 14 years, and carry over to economic long-run outcomes. Moreover, we document a strong asymmetry: Students who receive negative rather than positive shocks react more strongly. Our findings therefore provide evidence on how the school environment can have long-lasting consequences for the well-being of individuals.
Troubled in School: Does Maternal Involvement Matter for Adolescents (with Martijn van Hasselt), Accepted (2023), Journal of Population Economics.
[ Abstract | Draft | Published Link ]
We estimate the causal effect of mother's involvement on the amount of trouble an adolescent experiences in school. We use multiple measures of school trouble and factor analysis to construct a composite and then link this composite with noncognitive skills. Our measure of mother's involvement encompasses discussing school-related matters and providing help with school projects. Using an instrumental variable constructed from a suitably chosen peer group, our main finding is that an increase in maternal involvement leads to a significant decrease in school trouble. We find this result to be robust across a large number of sensitivity tests designed to account for possible selection effects, shocks at the peer group level, and further potential violations of the exclusion restriction. Additionally, we present evidence suggesting that the effect of maternal involvement may operate through its effect on adolescents' college aspirations, mental health, and the perception of parental warmth.
Peer Gender and Schooling: Evidence from Ethiopia (with Daniel Borbely) and Agnese Romiti), Accepted (2022), Journal of Human Capital.
[ Abstract | Draft | Published Link ]
This paper studies how classmate gender composition matters for school absences and test scores in a context characterized by strong social norms and scarce school resources. We base our results on a unique survey of students across classrooms and schools in Ethiopia, exploiting random assignment of students to classrooms. We find a strong asymmetry: while females benefit from exposure to more female classmates with reduced absenteeism and improvement on math test scores, males are unaffected. We further find that exposure to more female classmates improves motivation and participation in class, and in general, that the effects of classmate gender composition are consistent with social interaction effects.
The Skill Development of the Children of Immigrants (with Marie Hull), Economics of Education Review 78 (2020): 102036.
[ Abstract | Draft | Published Link ]
In this paper, we study the evolution of cognitive and noncognitive skills gaps for children of immigrants between kindergarten and 5th grade using two recent cohorts of elementary school students. We find some evidence that children of immigrants begin school with lower math scores than children of natives, but this gap disappears in later elementary school. For noncognitive skills, children of immigrants and children of natives score similarly in early elementary school, but a positive gap opens up in 2nd grade. We find that the growth in noncognitive skills is driven by disadvantaged immigrant students. We discuss potential explanations for the observed patterns of skill development as well as the implications of our results for the labor market prospects of children of immigrants.
Peers, Parents, and Attitudes about School, Journal of Human Capital 14, no. 2 (Summer 2020): 290-342.
[ Abstract | Draft | Published Link ]
Educational attitudes are linked to long-term educational success through motivating effort and greater attention to the future. This study focuses on the role of friends and of parents in the school grade cohort in shaping adolescent attitude development. First, I explore the effect of friends' attitudes on an adolescent's attitudes. Second, I ask whether parental investments and educational expectations in the adolescent's school cohort can moderate the influence of friends on attitudes. I find that adolescents’ attitudes about school respond to friends’ attitudes and that parental educational expectations within a cohort can moderate the influence of friends on attitudes.
Identity Economics: Social Influence and Skill Development, Journal of Economic Surveys 33, no. 5 (2019): 1389-1408.
[ Abstract | Draft | Published Link ]
Within the economic literature, studies in identity economics, peer effects, and skill development have all suggested that social influences have an important role in determining choices. In this review, I draw on lessons learned from the identity economics literature to examine implications from the peer effects and skill development literature. I focus on the role of social identity in generating social group effects from peers and what role identity may have in shaping the development of skills from broader environments, parents and peers during childhood and adolescence.
