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Do Peer Groups Matter? Peer Group versus Schooling Effects on Academic Attainment
Author(s) -
Robertson Donald,
Symons James
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
economica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.532
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1468-0335
pISSN - 0013-0427
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0335.d01-46
Subject(s) - earnings , educational attainment , nomination , scrutiny , peer group , demographic economics , production (economics) , function (biology) , quality (philosophy) , psychology , economics , set (abstract data type) , econometrics , developmental psychology , political science , economic growth , microeconomics , accounting , computer science , philosophy , programming language , epistemology , evolutionary biology , law , biology
This paper estimates an educational production function. Educational attainment is a function of peer group, parental input and schooling. Conventional measures of school quality are not good predictors for academic attainment, once we control for peer group effects; parental qualities also have strong effects on academic attainment. This academic attainment is a then a key determinant of subsequent labour market success, as measured by earnings. The main methodological innovation in this paper is the nomination of a set of instruments, very broad regions of birth, which, as a whole, pass close scrutiny for validity and permit unbiased estimation of the production function.