TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Ásgeirsdottir, Tinna Laufey
AU  - Francesconi, Marco
AU  - Johannsdottir, Ásthildur M.
AU  - Zoega, Gylfi
        TI  - How Home Exams and Peers Affect College Grades in Unprecedented Times
        PY  - 2025/Dec/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 18344
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp18344
        AB  - Leveraging administrative data from the University of Iceland, which cover more than 60% of the undergraduate population in the country, we examine how home exams and peer networks shape grades around the COVID-19 crisis. Using difference-in-difference models with a rich set of fixed effects, we find that home exams taken during university closures raised grades by about 0.5 points (about 7%) relative to invigilated in-person exams outside the pandemic period. Access to a larger share of high-school peers leads to an average grade increase of up to two-fifths of a point, and exposure to higher-quality peers yielded additional, but smaller gains. Interactions between peer-network measures and the COVID/home-exam indicators are near zero, providing no evidence that peer networks amplified home-exam gains during the pandemic.
        KW  - networks
KW  - COVID-19
KW  - online education
KW  - academic performance
KW  - academic dishonesty
KW  - Iceland
        ER  -