Yuanyuan Chen;Caiting Dong;

• 1:School of Economics
• 2:Shanghai University of Finance and Economics
• 3:Key Laboratory of Mathematical Economics(SUFE)
• 4:Ministry of Education

Abstract：

Using random class assignment sample from the 2013—2014 China Education Panel Survey(CEPS),this paper analyzes the bellwether effects of top students on their class peers among the students in seventh and ninth grades. The results suggest the top rank students in primary school have significant positive spillover effects on their peers' cognitive performance and educational expectations, but have no significant impact on school engagement and mental health. The mechanism analysis shows that top students influence their peers mainly through increasing their learning initiative and improving the relationship among classmates. Meanwhile, top students also raise up the pressures among peer students and parents, and as a result, increase their peers' out-of-school tutoring and the investment of parents' money and time. The heterogeneity analysis show that the positive effect of top students on peer cognitive performance is short-term, which is only significant in grade 7 and no longer significant in grade 9. However, the positive effect of top students has a lasting effect on peer educational expectation in both grade 7 and grade 9.

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Foundation: 国家社会科学基金重大项目“人口与经济协调发展的逻辑、模式和规律研究”（项目编号：23&ZD183）;国家社会科学基金哲学社会科学领军人才项目“新发展格局背景下全面促进中国居民消费的理论、机制与政策研究”（项目编号：22VRC002）的资助;; 教育部人文社会科学研究青年项目“家校合作与儿童人力资本形成的研究：机制、效应与政策”（项目编号：23YJC790018）;; 广东省哲学社会科学规划学科共建项目“增强香港青少年国家认同感的路径研究”（项目编号：GD23XYJ32）;; 广东省普通高校青年创新人才类项“家校合作对儿童人力资本形成影响的研究”（项目编号：2023WQNCX047）

Authors: Yuanyuan Chen;Caiting Dong;

References：

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• (1)也有一些研究通过将学生随机分配的自然实验识别同伴效应(Duflo et al.,2011;Carrell et al.,2013;王春超和钟锦鹏,2018)。 (2)全文回归以学校作为聚类层级的结果仍然稳健,限于篇幅作者留存备索。 (3)个别变量组间有显著性差异在研究同伴效应文献的随机分班平衡性检验中并不少见,如Carrell et al.(2013),Gong et al.(2018,2021)。 (4)限于篇幅,作者留存备索。