Working Papers
In the School, Down the Block: Achievement Effects of Peers in the School, Neighborhood, and Cohort
Job Market Paper
Author: Alex Johann
Abstract
I estimate the effect of mean peer ability on students’ test scores using data on all Michigan public school students over thirteen years. I consider peers in the same cohort at school—as well as peers in adjacent cohorts, and peers living on the same block. I contribute two novel findings to the literature. First, school peer effects are much stronger than block effects. For peers in the same cohort, the school effect is 10 times larger. Second, cohort membership plays a substantial role in determining peer influence in schools but not in neighborhoods. For students in the same school, the adjacent-cohort peer effect is 40-80% smaller than the same-cohort effect. Meanwhile, for students living on the same block, peer effects are similar, regardless of cohort. These results are robust to a regression discontinuity design focusing on students near the birthdate cutoff for entry into kindergarten. I also find evidence that peers in the older cohort matter more than peers in the younger cohort, particularly in the school context, suggesting that relative age also plays a role in determining peer influence.
Author: Alex Johann
Abstract
I examine how gender gaps in noncognitive skills change over time by comparing two nationally representative datasets of elementary school students. I determine that girls’ advantages in four out of five noncognitive measures remain large and unchanged between the 1998-1999 and 2010-2011 national cohorts, ranging from 0.35 to 0.4 standard deviations, sub- stantially larger than gender gaps in cognitive test scores. Focusing on family background and parental input measures examined in previous literature, I investigate the extent to which these measures continue to explain noncognitive gender gaps despite no change in the overall level of gender gaps. I find that the influence of these measures in predicted gender gaps has declined, likely due to an equalization of parent reports of educational activities and warmth between boys and girls. Single motherhood and teen motherhood remain predictors of gender gaps, though the correlation between kindergarten socioeconomic status and gender gaps has decreased.
Raising Boys, Raising Girls: Modeling Gender Differences in the Dynamic Process of Early Childhood Skill Formation
Author: Alex Johann
Abstract
Using two nationally representative datasets with detailed information on students, parents, and schools, I model separate human capital production function for boys and girls. Building from a basic model of contemporaneous correlation of inputs up to a dynamic technology of skill formation model as proposed by Cunha et al. (2010), I test whether the model parameters that best fit the data are detectably different between boys and girls. In doing so, I seek to answer two questions: (1) do boys and girls have differing processes of human capital production? And (2) if they do, is there evidence that boys are truly more sensitive to parental investment decisions, as is suggested in the literature?