时间：2019年12月25日（星期三），12：00-13：30

地点：北京师范大学后主楼1629

报告人：胡子寒（康奈尔大学博士生）

主持人：李亚男

报告题目：Negative Peer Effects under Competition: Evidence from a University in China

Abstract：How incentive structures influence peer effects in education is an important question, but one which is heavily understudied. We investigate peer effects under competition, using administrative data from a university in China where students face fierce competition for annual GPA-determined scholarships. Exploiting a random assignment of students to dormitories, we find that living with more high-ability (measured by the College Entrance Exam scores) roommates significantly decreases students’ academic performance during college. More importantly, this negative peer effect increases significantly when the competition environment becomes more intense along four various dimensions: 1) whether they are both good enough to be potential winners of the scholarship competition; 2) whether they are direct competitors with each other (sharing the same major); 3) how close are their initial ability measurements; 4) relative number of competitors inside and outside a dorm room. We further show that these results could not be explained by the self-esteem mechanism. Our findings highlight that competition changes the nature of peer interaction. They suggest a low-cost way to potentially improve student performance within the world’s largest school system through optimizing dormitory allocation.

报告人简介

胡子寒，康奈尔大学经济系和公共政策与管理系博士生。目前研究方向为发展中国家的劳动经济学和健康经济学。他是康奈尔大学2019年Red Wilson Excellence in Economics Medal的得主，也曾在2018年获得中国留美经济学会的Gregory Chow Best Paper Award。