There is a large literature on social interactions and still little is known about the economic mechanisms leading to the high level of clustering in behavior that is so commonly observed in the data. In this paper we present a model in which agents are allowed to interact according to three...

In this paper we investigate whether peers’ behavior influences the choice of college major. Using a unique dataset of students at Bocconi University and exploiting the organization of teaching at this institution, we are able to identify the endogenous effect of peers on such decision through...

There is an apparent inconsistency in the existing literature on graduate employment in the UK. While analyses of rates of return to graduates or graduate mark-ups show high returns, suggesting that demand has kept up with a rapidly rising supply of graduates, the literature on over-education...

The influx of immigrants has shifted the ethnic composition of public schools in many states including North Carolina. Recent evidence from North Carolina suggests that increases in Limited English students' concentration have led to a slight decline in performance solely for students at the top...

The influx of immigrants has shifted the ethnic composition of public schools in many states. Given the perceived negative impact of significant immigrant inflows, we are interested in investigating if these inflows into a school affect the academic performance of native students who remain. To...

The aim of this paper is to study whether schooling choices are affected by social interactions. Such social interactions may be important because children enjoy spending time with other children or parents learn from other parents about the ability of their children. Identification is based on...

In this paper, we analyze how the share of immigrant children in the classroom affects the educational attainment of native Dutch children. Our analysis uses data from various sources, which allow us to characterize educational attainment in terms of reading literacy, mathematical skills and...

Despite its efficiency in tailoring education to the needs of students, a tracking system has the inherent problem of misallocating students to tracks because of incomplete information at the time of the tracking decision. This paper investigates the effects of attending a more advanced track in...

We develop a model that analyzes the impact of residential neighborhood and parents’ involvement in education on children’s educational attainment and test it using the UK National Child Development Study. We find that the better the quality of the neighborhood, the higher the parents’...

We examine the effect of peer achievement on students' own achievement and teacher performance in primary schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods using data from a well-executed randomized experiment in seven states. Contrary to the existing literature, we find that the average classroom peer...