TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Thiemann, Petra
        TI  - The Persistent Effects of Short-Term Peer Groups in Higher Education
        PY  - 2017/Sep/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 11024
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp11024
        AB  - This paper demonstrates that short-term peer exposure can generate achievement effects which persist for several months and years. I study a mandatory freshmen week for first-year undergraduates and exploit the random assignment of students to freshmen teams. I find that the freshmen week contributes to the formation of persistent social ties. Furthermore, peers' observable characteristics impact college achievement for up to three years. Ability peer effects are non-linear, i.e. very high or low levels of average peer ability in a group harm students' grades. These effects are most pronounced for low-ability students.
        KW  - peer effects
KW  - higher education
KW  - natural experiment
KW  - gender
KW  - region of origin
KW  - ability
        ER  -