"Bad Apple" Peer Effects in Elementary Classrooms: the Case of Corporal Punishment in the Home

This paper provides the first empirical evidence on the existence of negative spillover effects from children exposed to corporal punishment in the home (CPH). We find that interactions with peers suffering from CPH depress achievement in both math and language among Vietnamese fifth graders. Specifically, a one standard deviation increase in the Peers’ Violence Index is associated with a reduction in the math and the language test scores by 0.11 and 0.14 standard deviations, respectively. These adverse impacts could potentially be attributed to the unfavorable changes in student academic aspirations, student actual learning efforts, and the inter-student relationships.