vii Abstract People are by nature social beings. Most of us have a complex social network that connects us with other people in numerous aspects of our lives: neighbours, co-workers or peers in schools, and friends. Moreover, it is widely believed that people's behaviour is to some extent affected by others in their social networks, which is known as peer effects. Therefore, a precise understanding of the behaviour of an individual necessarily includes understanding her interactions with others within her social network. The first part of this thesis, literature review, summarizes contemporary research on peer effects, shows which aspects of human behaviour may be affected by social interactions, and highlights the importance of peer effects research. In the second part, the estimation of the linear- in-means peer effects model, we provide a detailed description of the model, derivations of its alternative formulations, and show the identification conditions. The main contribution of the second part is that we provide a step-by-step analysis of the linear-in-means peer effects model and detailed proofs of theorems in one place. The third part provides an empirical analysis of peer effects in education in the Czech Republic. In particular, we examine how the test scores of pupils are affected by their...

Rural America contributes greatly to the American Community, yet this population is often overlooked and underrepresented in most types of education literature. Choices about residence shape America’s public school system through the formation of school districts and schools associated with these local jurisdictions. Communities with different population densities may have different overall population composition and, therefore, may sort differently into schools. This paper examines the effect that population density, local jurisdictional sorting, homogeneity, peer characteristics, and community social capital may have on student achievement. The first part of this dissertation outlines the importance of rural research and the impact of rural education on all of America. These areas have different economies, opportunities, and peer composition than their non-rural counterparts. The statistically average person is different in rural and urban America. The second part discusses the theoretical implications of locale influence on educational attainment. This theory explains the possible causes of peer effect strength and provides a better predictive model of both rural and urban peer effects. I argue that some level of heterogeneity and high social capital foster strong peer effects, and there is a tradeoff between diverse student body composition and social capital. In the final portion of this dissertation, I explore student achievement using empirical analysis. Based on the analysis in Chapter 4, it appears that student achievement is impacted by peers with and without controlling for teacher effects and social capital (or type) of a locale without controlling for teacher effects. Chapter 5 examines peer effect differences by locale and finds differences in peer effect strength. Suburbs have significantly stronger classroom mean peer effects in elementary school than towns. Skewness influences appear to be the same across grades and locale, and social capital has a positive impact on student achievement in elementary school and a negative impact on student achievement in middle school. The analyses in Chapter 6 conclude that student achievement is impacted by both the average and the percentage of high and low achievers but not similarly by locale. The final chapter discusses the results and their implications for future research and for policy makers.

Aside from the introduction and conclusion, this thesis comprises four core chapters: The first chapter investigates the presence of endogenous peer effects in the adoption of formal property rights. Using data from a unique land titling experiment held in an unplanned settlement in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. I show a strong, positive impact of neighbour adoption on the household’s choice to purchase a land title. I also show that this relationship holds in a separate, identical experiment held a year later in a nearby community, as well as in administrative data for approximately 45,000 land parcels in the same city. I also discuss possible channels, including the possibility of complementarities in the reduction in expropriation risk. The second chapter examines the relationship between ethnic heterogeneity and the demand for formal land tenure. Using a unique census of two highly fractionalised settle- ments in Dar es Salaam, I show that households located near coethnics are significantly less likely to purchase a limited form of land tenure recently offered by the government. I attempt to address one of the chief concerns, endogenous sorting of households, by con- ditioning on a households choice of neighbors upon arrival in the neighborhood. These results suggest that close-knit ethnic groups may be less likely to accept state-provided goods if they can generate reasonable substitutes. The third chapter is a short chapter which presents results from a recent policy experi- ment in Tanzania where formal land titles were provided to informal settlers at randomised prices. Land owners were also randomly assigned conditional discounts, which could only be applied if a woman was designated as owner or co-owner of the land in question. Results show that conditionality has no adverse effects on demand for land titles, yet drastically increases the probability a woman is included. We discuss the implications of these results for the expected bargaining power impacts of the intervention. The final chapter investigates birth order effects on both anthropometric and edu- cation outcomes in a longitudinal survey of children from the Philippines. Birth order effects are present early in life for both outcomes, but attenuate as children approach adulthood. There is also evidence for nonlinear birth order effects, with both firstborn and lastborn children holding an advantage over middleborn children. These results are at odds with prevalent theories of birth order which predict lasting and monotonic differences in outcomes across children.

Different types of shocks, or the treatment of one of the players in a specific network, may influence not only the future performance of themselves but also affect their network connections. It is crucial to explore the behaviour of the whole network in response to such an event. This paper focuses on the cases of endogenously formed shock. The logic used in the peer effect literature is adopted to develop the dynamic model and accounts for the endogeneity of the shock. The model allows us to predict the endogenous part of the shock and use the remaining unexpected component to estimate the effect of the shock on the changes in the performance of network connections. The identification conditions for effect are derived, and the consistent estimation procedure is proposed. / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Exam failures of the students in a specific network may influence not only the future performance of the student but also all students from their friendship networks, affecting the overall cohort's performance. Therefore, it is crucial to understand how the whole network responses to failure. The difficulty of such analysis is incorporated in the probability of the failures being highly endogenous. In this paper, I am applying the novel identification and estimation approach to deal with such endogeneity. I am exploring the dynamic data on the students' networks in HSE, Nizhniy Novgorod. The results suggest that, on average, the exam failure of the friend have a negative effect on future performance. / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

This study investigates the peer effect in the asset pricing models in the international stock market. The peer effect theory proposes a dependence between individual decisions due to interactions that create a social network structure. The idea is that we need to understand the correlation between outcomes of individuals that interact in an environment and which could lead to a homogenous pattern of movement especially on asset pricing models. We use a sample of almost 7,000 companies listed on fourteen countries from 2006 to 2016 and arrange them in four peer groups. Since the peer effect has a reflection problem, we divide our empirical models in two aspects. First, we analyze the relationship between stock return from the firm, its financial aspects and the financial aspects for the peer group using a fixed effect regressor. Then, we try to understand the relationship between stock return from a firm, the stock return from the peer firms, the financial aspects from the firm and the financial aspects for the peer group by estimating a 2SLS model with an instrumental variable. Our findings show the existence of peer effects on stock return for all the peer groups. Also, the effects are always positive regardless if we select emerging or developed markets. Moreover, there is exogenous peer effect from the characteristics of the peer firms in the stock return that depends on the indicator and the peer group. Market-to-book ratio of the peers presents a positive relationship with the stock return. As a robustness test, we re-estimate the models for two subsamples and find that the results are consistent to the previous ones. / Este estudo investiga o efeito dos pares nos modelos de precificação de ativos no mercado acionário internacional. A teoria do efeito de pares propõe uma dependência entre decisões individuais devido a interações que criam uma estrutura de rede social. A ideia é entender a correlação entre os resultados de indivíduos que interagem em um ambiente e que podem levar a um padrão de movimento homogêneo, especialmente em modelos de precificação de ativos. Utiliza-se uma amostra de quase 7.000 empresas de capital aberto em catorze países de 2006 a 2016 considerando quatro grupos de referência. Como o efeito par tem o conhecido problema de reflexão, divide-se os modelos empíricos em dois aspectos. Primeiro, analisa-se a relação entre o retorno das ações, os aspectos financeiros da firma e os aspectos financeiros do grupo de referência utilizando um modelo de efeito fixo em painel. Em seguida, busca-se entender a relação entre o retorno das ações de uma empresa, o retorno das ações das empresas pares, os aspectos financeiros de ambas, estimando um modelo 2SLS com uma variável instrumental. Os resultados mostram a existência de comovimento no retorno das ações para todos os grupos de referência. Os efeitos do retorno das ações dos pares são positivos e mais intensos para a indústria e país independentemente se se escolhe mercados emergentes ou desenvolvidos. Além disso, existe um efeito de pares exógeno a partir das características das empresas pares, principalmente para razão market-to-book, que depende do indicador financeiro e do grupo de referência. Como teste de robustez, reestimou-se os modelos para duas subamostras que mostraram resultados consistentes com os anteriores.

O objetivo desta pesquisa é analisar o papel do gênero no aprendizado escolar no Brasil, enfatizando desigualdades e o efeito de pares. Essas questões foram analisadas em cinco capítulos, incluindo a introdução e as considerações finais. Inicia-se com uma breve descrição sobre a desigualdade de gênero em termos de aprendizado de matemática e português no Brasil considerando, principalmente, os alunos de 5º e 9º ano. Observa-se que os meninos tendem a se sair melhor em matemática que as meninas, uma relação que se inverte para português e, ainda, que estas desigualdades aumentam nos anos escolares mais avançados. O segundo capítulo visa investigar os fatores associados a estas diferenças, explorando características dos alunos, professores e escolas através de dois métodos diferentes de decomposição, uma que explora a diferença de média dos resultados e outra que analisa toda a distribuição de notas. Os resultados indicam que apesar de meninos e meninas possuírem características de contexto socioeconômico e familiares parecidas, o principal fator contribuinte para as diferenças de aprendizado está no retorno destas características em termos de nota para cada um dos dois gêneros, o que, portanto, reduz o papel do professor e da escola na diminuição destas desigualdades. O terceiro capítulo trata do efeito de pares no aprendizado do 5º ano das escolas públicas brasileiras. Ele investiga, de maneira causal, a relação entre a proporção de meninas na escola e o aprendizado. Identifica-se uma relação positiva entre notas e a proporção de meninas em português e, principalmente, em matemática, uma disciplina cujas meninas tendem a se sair piores do que os meninos. Isto, portanto, chama atenção para o tópico do quarto capítulo, que busca elucidar mecanismos por trás desta influência. Verifica-se, portanto, que o efeito positivo das meninas ocorre via comportamento, o que se reflete em menor violência, maior expectativa dos professores sobre o futuro escolar dos alunos e facilita o andamento da classe. Diante disso, em termos de políticas públicas, o trabalho chama atenção para o gênero como fator importante na alocação de alunos e professores dentro da escola. Assim, levar os resultados aqui apresentados em consideração na formulação e execução de políticas pode resultar em medidas efetivas e de baixo custo voltadas para o aumento do aprendizado escolar. / The aim of this research is to analyze the role of gender on scholastic achievement in Brazil, emphasizing inequalities and peer effects. These issues are analyzed in five chapters, including the introduction and the concluding remarks. We start by briefly describing gender inequality in terms of math and literacy achievements in Brazil, focusing, mainly, on 5th and 9th grade students. We observe that boys tend to outperform girls in math, a relation that reverses in literacy and, furthermore, that these inequalities increase in more advanced schooling years. The second chapter aims to investigate the factors associated with these differences, exploring students’, teachers’ and schools characteristics in two different types of decomposition methods, one that explores differences in mean achievement and another that assesses the entire test score distribution. The results indicate that despite boys and girls having similar family and socioeconomic characteristics, the main contributor towards the learning differences is the return of these characteristics in terms of test scores for each of the two genders, which, therefore, reduces the role of teachers’ and schools in diminishing these inequalities. The third chapter deals with peer effects in 5th grade Brazilian public schools. It investigates the casual relationship between the proportion of girls at school and learning. We identify a positive relation between test scores and the proportion of girls in literacy and, mainly, in math, a subject that girls tend to be outscored by boys. This, in fact, draws attention to the fourth chapter, which seeks to elucidate the mechanisms behind this influence. We verify that the benefits of having a greater proportion of girls are mainly through improvements in student behavior, which reflects in less violence, greater teacher expectations over the student’s academic future, and facilitates classroom progress. In terms of public policies, this research draws attention to gender as an important factor in the allocation of students and teachers within schools. Therefore, the consideration of our findings in the formulation and execution of policies can result in effective and low cost measures aimed at increasing scholastic achievement.

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Using a unique data set in which students have been assigned randomly to different classrooms throughout several disadvantaged school districts across the United States, I estimate how a student's peer group can affect their academic achievement. Both my data set and my empirical strategy allow me to overcome many of the well-documented difficulties associated with accurately measuring peer effects, though certain data limitations remain an inevitable part of the study. Under these constraints, I find evidence of small peer group effects within a specific proportion of the student population. Generally, however, my findings suggest that peer effects do not play a significant role in shaping educational outcomes. Personal ability is by far the most contributive factor to students' academic performance while the ability of their average classmate does not appear to matter at all, except in the case of very low ability students, where the effect is both small and negative.

This dissertation focuses on two distinct relationships: 1) classroom peer ability and student end-of-course test outcomes and 2) school tracking policy and student end-of-course test outcomes. Utilizing the education production function and hierarchical linear models, this dissertation contributes to the literature in the field of public policy by extending the work of previous scholars and focusing attention on these relationships in three high school subjects (English I, Algebra I, and Biology). In addition, I present a novel method for identifying tracking intensity within schools. The primary research questions addressed in the dissertation include: 1) To what extent does the ability level of classroom peers contribute to student test score performance?; 2) Does the variability of prior achievement within classrooms correlate with student test score outcomes?; and 3) Is there a relationship between school tracking policy and student test scores? Collectively these questions directly relate to policy options at the school, district, and state levels.