@TechReport{iza:izadps:dp14320,
            	author={Elsner, Benjamin and Isphording, Ingo E. and Zölitz, Ulf},
            	title={Achievement Rank Affects Performance and Major Choices in College},
            	year={2021},
	month={Apr},
            	institution={Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)},
            	address={Bonn},
            	type={IZA Discussion Paper},
            	number={14320},
            	url={https://www.iza.org/publications/dp14320},
	abstract={This paper studies how a student's ordinal rank in a peer group affects performance and specialisation choices in university. By exploiting data with repeated random assignment of students to teaching sections, we find that a higher rank increases performance and the probability of choosing related follow-up courses and majors. We document two types of dynamic effects. First, earlier ranks are less important than later ranks. Second, responses to rank changes are asymmetric: improvements in rank raise performance, while decreases in rank have no effect. Rank effects partially operate through students' expectations about future grades.},
	keywords={higher education;social comparisons;rank;peer effects},
            }