Working Paper: NBER ID: w16865
Authors: Scott E. Carrell; Bruce I. Sacerdote; James E. West
Abstract: We take cohorts of entering freshmen at the United States Air Force Academy and assign half to peer groups with the goal of maximizing the academic performance of the lowest ability students. Our assignment algorithm uses peer effects estimates from the observational data. We find a negative and significant treatment effect for the students we intended to help. We show that within our "optimal" peer groups, students self-selected into bifurcated sub-groups with social dynamics entirely different from those in the observational data. Our results suggest that using reduced-form estimates to make out-of-sample policy predictions can lead to unanticipated outcomes.
Keywords: Peer Effects; Education; Policy; Randomized Control Trials
JEL Codes: I20; J01
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Peer group composition (C92) | Social dynamics affecting academic performance (I24) |
| Peer group composition (C92) | Academic performance of lower ability students (D29) |
| Peer group composition (C92) | Academic performance of middle ability students (D29) |
| Sorting students into peer groups (C92) | Academic performance of lower ability students (D29) |
| Sorting students into peer groups (C92) | Academic performance of middle ability students (D29) |