Identifying Peer Effects in Student Academic Achievement by Spatial Autoregressive Models with Group Unobservables

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Lin, Xu
• 署名单位: Wayne State University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF LABOR ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0734-306X
• DOI: 10.1086/653506
• 发表日期: 2010
• 页码: 825-860
• 关键词: social interactions; identification; outcomes; selection; PRIVATE; IMPACT; GROWTH

摘要

Disentangling peer effects from other confounding effects is difficult, and separately identifying endogenous and contextual effects is impossible for the linear-in-means model. This study confronts these problems by using spatial autoregressive models with group fixed effects. The nonlinearity introduced by the variations in the peer measurements provides information to identify both endogenous and contextual effects, thus resolving the reflection problem. The group fixed effects term captures the confounding effects of the common variables. Applying the model to data sets from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, I find strong evidence for both endogenous and contextual effects in student academic achievement.