Heterogeneous Peer Effects under Endogenous Selection: An Application to Local and Migrant Children in Elementary Schools in Shanghai

Arbeitspapier

This paper develops a model that allows for heterogenous contemporaneous peer effects among different types of agents who are endogenously selected into different peer groups. Using our framework, we characterize the reduced-form coefficient in the peer effect literature and show that it is a priori ambiguous in sign. We apply our approach to migrant and local students in Shanghai, where local students all go to public schools, but migrant students are endogenously selected into either public schools or lower-quality private schools. The results suggest large contemporaneous peer effects among all student groups. We conduct policy experiments to examine the effect of transferring migrant students from private schools to public schools. We show that peer effect can be substantially more important than the school effect in accounting for the total treatment effect of moving to better schools.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 15070

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models: Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile Regressions; Social Interaction Models ; Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models: Truncated and Censored Models; Switching Regression Models ; Analysis of Education
• Subject: peer effects ; sample selection ; education ; migrant children

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Chen, Yuanyuan ; Feng, Shuaizhang ; Yang, Chao
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2022

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/252194
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET