Academic Peer Effects with Different Group Assignment Policies: Residential Tracking versus Random Assignment
研究南非大学宿舍中按成绩追踪分组与随机分配对学生学业表现的影响，发现追踪分组降低了低分学生的平均绩点，且同伴效应在其中起主要作用。
I study the relative academic performance of students tracked or randomly assigned to South African university dormitories. Tracking reduces low-scoring students' GPAs and has little effect on high-scoring students, leading to lower and more dispersed GPAs. I also directly estimate peer effects using random variation in peer groups across dormitories. Living with higher-scoring peers raises students' GPAs, particularly for low-scoring students, and peer effects are stronger between socially proximate students. This shows that much of the treatment effect of tracking is attributable to peer effects. These results present a cautionary note about sorting students into academically homogeneous classrooms or neighborhoods.