In this paper we relate a particular form of social interactions, i.e. peer group influences, to the structure of the network from which they originate. Using an extremely detailed dataset on friendship relationships between students from U.S. school, we find evidence suggesting that the...

Using unique geo-coded information on the residential address of a representative sample of American adolescents and their friends, we revisit the importance of geographical proximity in shaping education outcomes. Our findings reveal no evidence of residential neighborhood effects. Social...

This paper studies the effect of exposure to female and male "high-achievers" in high school on the long-run educational outcomes of their peers. Using data from a recent cohort of students in the United States, we identify a causal effect by exploiting quasi-random variation in the exposure of...

We investigate the racial gap in test scores between white and non-white students in Britain both in levels and differences across the school years. We find that there is a substantial racial gap in test scores, especially between ages 7 and 11, and a less severe one between ages 11 and 16. It...

We develop a network model looking at the role of different types of peers in education. The empirical salience of the model is tested using a very detailed longitudinal dataset of adolescent friendship networks. We find that there are strong and persistent peer effects in education but peers...

The aim of this paper is to investigate and understand the effect of high-school friends on years of schooling. We develop a simple network model where students first choose their friends and then decide how much effort they put in education. The empirical salience of the model is tested using...

Using unique geo-coded information on the residential address of a representative sample of American adolescents and their friends, we revisit the importance of geographical proximity in shaping education outcomes. Our findings reveal no evidence of residential neighborhood effects. Social...

We develop a model that analyzes the impact of residential neighborhood and parents’ involvement in education on children’s educational attainment and test it using the UK National Child Development Study. We find that the better the quality of the neighborhood, the higher the parents’...

We investigate the racial gap in test scores between black and white students in Britain both in levels and differences across the school years. We find that there is an increasing racial gap in test scores between ages 7 and 11, and a decreasing one between ages 11 and 16. Using the richness of...

We develop a model that gives some microfoundation to the impact of residential neighborhood on children’s educational attainment and then test it using the UK National Child Development Study. We find that, for high-educated parents, the better the quality of the neighborhood in terms of...