IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/tuewef/143.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

An optimal split of school classes

Author

Listed:
  • Stark, Oded

Abstract

In many countries, schools have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by splitting up classes. While the purpose of dividing classes is clearly health-related, the process of doing so poses an interesting question: what is the best way to divide a class so as to maximize the incentive for students to perform better? Using a constructive example, we demonstrate how social-psychological unhappiness can be the basis for an incentive structure that optimally nudges students to improve their performance. The example is based on evidence that students aspire to improve their performance when it lags behind that of other students with whom they naturally compare themselves. For a given set of m students, we quantify unhappiness by the index of relative deprivation, which measures the extent to which a student lags behind other students in the set who are doing better than him. We examine how to divide the set into an exogenously predetermined number of subsets in order to maximize aggregate relative deprivation, so that the incentive for the students to study harder because of unfavorable comparison with other students is at its strongest. We show that the solution to this problem depends only on the students' ordinally-measured levels of performance, independent of the performance of comparators. In addition, we find that when m is an even number, there are multiple optimal divisions, whereas when m is an odd number, there is only one optimal division.

Suggested Citation

  • Stark, Oded, 2021. "An optimal split of school classes," University of Tübingen Working Papers in Business and Economics 143, University of Tuebingen, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, School of Business and Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:tuewef:143
    DOI: 10.15496/publikation-54008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/231510/1/1748107275.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.15496/publikation-54008?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Azmat, Ghazala & Iriberri, Nagore, 2010. "The importance of relative performance feedback information: Evidence from a natural experiment using high school students," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(7-8), pages 435-452, August.
    2. Jacob M. Markman & Eric A. Hanushek & John F. Kain & Steven G. Rivkin, 2003. "Does peer ability affect student achievement?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(5), pages 527-544.
    3. Pak, Tae-Young & Choung, Youngjoo, 2020. "Relative deprivation and suicide risk in South Korea," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 247(C).
    4. Robert Garlick, 2018. "Academic Peer Effects with Different Group Assignment Policies: Residential Tracking versus Random Assignment," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 345-369, July.
    5. Stark, Oded & Bielawski, Jakub & Falniowski, Fryderyk, 2017. "A class of proximity-sensitive measures of relative deprivation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 105-110.
    6. Armin Falk & Andrea Ichino, 2006. "Clean Evidence on Peer Effects," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(1), pages 39-58, January.
    7. Mary C. Daly & Daniel J. Wilson & Norman J. Johnson, 2013. "Relative Status and Well-Being: Evidence from U.S. Suicide Deaths," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(5), pages 1480-1500, December.
    8. Oriana Bandiera & Iwan Barankay & Imran Rasul, 2010. "Social Incentives in the Workplace," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(2), pages 417-458.
    9. Alain Cohn & Ernst Fehr & Benedikt Herrmann & Frédéric Schneider, 2014. "Social Comparison And Effort Provision: Evidence From A Field Experiment," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 877-898, August.
    10. Bruce Sacerdote, 2001. "Peer Effects with Random Assignment: Results for Dartmouth Roommates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 681-704.
    11. Leonardo Bursztyn & Robert Jensen, 2015. "How Does Peer Pressure Affect Educational Investments?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(3), pages 1329-1367.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Oded Stark & Wiktor Budzinski, 2021. "A social‐psychological reconstruction of Amartya Sen’s measures of inequality and social welfare," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(4), pages 552-566, November.
    2. Oded Stark & Grzegorz Kosiorowski, 2023. "A pure theory of population distribution when preferences are ordinal," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 71(2), pages 317-342, October.
    3. Stark, Holger & Kosiorowski, Grzegorz, 2023. "A Pure Theory of Population Distribution When Preferences Are Ordinal," IZA Discussion Papers 15923, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Oded Stark & Grzegorz Kosiorowski, 2021. "Turning relative deprivation into a performance incentive device," The Journal of Mathematical Sociology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(1), pages 22-36, January.
    5. Alexandra de Gendre & Nicolás Salamanca, 2020. "On the Mechanisms of Ability Peer Effects," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2020n19, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    6. Julie Beugnot & Bernard Fortin & Guy Lacroix & Marie Claire Villeval, 2013. "Social Networks and Peer Effects at Work," Cahiers de recherche 1320, CIRPEE.
    7. Beugnot, Julie & Fortin, Bernard & Lacroix, Guy & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2019. "Gender and peer effects on performance in social networks," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 207-224.
    8. Chesney, Alexander J., 2022. "Should I get a master’s degree?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    9. Richard Murphy & Felix Weinhardt, 2020. "Top of the Class: The Importance of Ordinal Rank," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(6), pages 2777-2826.
    10. Stephen Gibbons & Shqiponja Telhaj, 2016. "Peer Effects: Evidence from Secondary School Transition in England," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 78(4), pages 548-575, August.
    11. Lukas Kiessling & Jonas Radbruch & Sebastian Schaube, 2022. "Self-Selection of Peers and Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(11), pages 8184-8201, November.
    12. Jiang, Lingqing, 2020. "Splash with a teammate: Peer effects in high-stakes tournaments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 165-188.
    13. Steven N. Durlauf & Yannis M. Ioannides, 2010. "Social Interactions," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 451-478, September.
    14. Yann Bramoullé & Habiba Djebbari & Bernard Fortin, 2020. "Peer Effects in Networks: A Survey," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 603-629, August.
    15. ,, 2009. "Monopolistic group design with peer effects," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 4(1), March.
    16. James Farrell, 2019. "Peer Effects Among Teachers: A Study of Retirement Investments," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 486-497, September.
    17. Graff, Frederik & Grund, Christian & Harbring, Christine, 2021. "Competing on the Holodeck - The effect of virtual peers and heterogeneity in dynamic tournaments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    18. Nicole Schneeweis & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer, 2008. "Peer effects in Austrian schools," Studies in Empirical Economics, in: Christian Dustmann & Bernd Fitzenberger & Stephen Machin (ed.), The Economics of Education and Training, pages 133-155, Springer.
    19. Philip Babcock & Kelly Bedard & Gary Charness & John Hartman & Heather Royer, 2015. "Letting Down The Team? Social Effects Of Team Incentives," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 13(5), pages 841-870, October.
    20. Grohmann, Antonia Charlotte & Sakha, Sahra, 2015. "The Effect of Peer Observation on the Consumption of Temptation Goods: Experimental Evidence," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113084, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social-psychological preferences; Distaste for trailing behind others; Unhappiness as measured by relative deprivation; Pressure to perform better; Superior performance of comparators; Assignment of students to subclasses; Optimum incentive to improve performance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact
    • D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • D90 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - General
    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure
    • M11 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Production Management
    • M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:tuewef:143. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wftuede.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.