IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_11456.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Effect of Classroom Rank on Learning Throughout Elementary School: Experimental Evidence from Ecuador

Author

Listed:
  • Pedro Carneiro
  • Yyannu Cruz Aguayo
  • Francesca Salvati
  • Norbert Schady

Abstract

We study the impact of classroom rank on children’s learning using a unique experiment from Ecuador. Within each school, students were randomly assigned to classrooms in every grade between kindergarten and 6th grade. Students with the same ability can have different classroom ranks because of the (random) peer composition of their classroom. Children with higher beginning-of-grade classroom rank have significantly higher test scores at the end of that grade. The impact of classroom rank is larger for younger children and grows over time. Higher classroom rank also improves executive function, child happiness, and teacher perceptions of student ability.

Suggested Citation

  • Pedro Carneiro & Yyannu Cruz Aguayo & Francesca Salvati & Norbert Schady, 2024. "The Effect of Classroom Rank on Learning Throughout Elementary School: Experimental Evidence from Ecuador," CESifo Working Paper Series 11456, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11456
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp11456.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Angrist, Joshua D., 2014. "The perils of peer effects," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 98-108.
    2. Joseph P. Romano & Michael Wolf, 2005. "Stepwise Multiple Testing as Formalized Data Snooping," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(4), pages 1237-1282, July.
    3. Benjamin Elsner & Ingo E. Isphording, 2017. "A Big Fish in a Small Pond: Ability Rank and Human Capital Investment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(3), pages 787-828.
    4. Koen Jochmans, 2023. "Testing random assignment to peer groups," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(3), pages 321-333, April.
    5. Oriana Bandiera & Iwan Barankay & Imran Rasul, 2005. "Social Preferences and the Response to Incentives: Evidence from Personnel Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(3), pages 917-962.
    6. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-01156529 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Norbert Schady & Jere Behrman & Maria Caridad Araujo & Rodrigo Azuero & Raquel Bernal & David Bravo & Florencia Lopez-Boo & Karen Macours & Daniela Marshall & Christina Paxson & Renos Vakis, 2015. "Wealth Gradients in Early Childhood Cognitive Development in Five Latin American Countries," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(2), pages 446-463.
    8. Jan Feld & Ulf Zölitz, 2017. "Understanding Peer Effects: On the Nature, Estimation, and Channels of Peer Effects," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(2), pages 387-428.
    9. Damian Clarke & Joseph P. Romano & Michael Wolf, 2020. "The Romano–Wolf multiple-hypothesis correction in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 20(4), pages 812-843, December.
    10. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Jonah E. Rockoff, 2014. "Measuring the Impacts of Teachers II: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(9), pages 2633-2679, September.
    11. Esther Duflo & Pascaline Dupas & Michael Kremer, 2011. "Peer Effects, Teacher Incentives, and the Impact of Tracking: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Kenya," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 1739-1774, August.
    12. David Card & Alexandre Mas & Enrico Moretti & Emmanuel Saez, 2012. "Inequality at Work: The Effect of Peer Salaries on Job Satisfaction," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2981-3003, October.
    13. Comi, Simona & Origo, Federica & Pagani, Laura & Tonello, Marco, 2021. "Last and furious: Relative position and school violence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 736-756.
    14. repec:idb:brikps:7259 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Benjamin Elsner & Ingo E Isphording & Ulf Zölitz, 2021. "Achievement Rank Affects Performance and Major Choices in College [Gender, competitiveness, and socialization at a young age: evidence from a matrilineal and a patriarchal society]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(640), pages 3182-3206.
    16. 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.
    17. Adam S. Booij & Edwin Leuven & Hessel Oosterbeek, 2017. "Ability Peer Effects in University: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(2), pages 547-578.
    18. Christina Paxson & Norbert Schady, 2007. "Cognitive Development among Young Children in Ecuador: The Roles of Wealth, Health, and Parenting," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(1).
    19. Jan Feld & Ulf Zölitz, 2017. "Understanding Peer Effects: On the Nature, Estimation, and Channels of Peer Effects," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(2), pages 387-428.
    20. Delaney, Judith M. & Devereux, Paul J., 2022. "Rank Effects in Education: What Do We Know So Far?," IZA Discussion Papers 15128, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    21. Bertoni, Marco & Nisticò, Roberto, 2023. "Ordinal rank and the structure of ability peer effects," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    22. Delaney, Judith M. & Devereux, Paul J., 2021. "High School Rank in Math and English and the Gender Gap in STEM," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    23. María Caridad Araujo & Martín Ardanaz & Edna Armendáriz & Jere R. Behrman & Samuel Berlinski & Julian P. Cristia & Yyannu Cruz-Aguayo & Luca Flabbi & Diana Hincapie & Analía Jalmovich & Sharon Lynn Ka, 2015. "The Early Years: Child Well-being and the Role of Public Policy," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 91496 edited by Samuel Berlinski & Norbert Schady, February.
    24. Jushan Bai, 2009. "Panel Data Models With Interactive Fixed Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(4), pages 1229-1279, July.
    25. Barrera-Osorio, Felipe & Gonzalez, Kathryn & Lagos, Francisco & Deming, David J., 2020. "Providing performance information in education: An experimental evaluation in Colombia," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    26. Eric A. Hanushek & Steven G. Rivkin, 2012. "The Distribution of Teacher Quality and Implications for Policy," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 131-157, July.
    27. Araujo, María Caridad & Ardanaz, Martín & Armendáriz, Edna & Behrman, Jere R. & Berlinski, Samuel & Cristia, Julian P. & Flabbi, Luca & Hincapie, Diana & Jalmovich, Analía & Kagan, Sharon Lynn & Lopez, 2015. "The Early Years: Child Well-being and the Role of Public Policy," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 7259, November.
    28. Heckman, James J., 2013. "Giving Kids a Fair Chance," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262019132, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Denis Chetverikov & Daniel Wilhelm, 2023. "Inference for Rank-Rank Regressions," Papers 2310.15512, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2024.

    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. de Gendre, Alexandra & Salamanca, Nicolás, 2020. "On the Mechanisms of Ability Peer Effects," IZA Discussion Papers 13938, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Bertoni, Marco & Nisticò, Roberto, 2023. "Ordinal rank and the structure of ability peer effects," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    3. Rigissa Megalokonomou & Yi Zhang, 2022. "How Good Am I? Effects and Mechanisms behind Salient Ranks," CESifo Working Paper Series 9991, CESifo.
    4. Rigissa Megalokonomou & Yi Zhang, 2023. "How Good Am I? Effects and Mechanisms Behind Salient Rank," Monash Economics Working Papers 2023-07, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    5. Ribas, Rafael P. & Sampaio, Breno & Trevisan, Giuseppe, 2020. "Short- and long-term effects of class assignment: Evidence from a flagship university in Brazil," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    6. Yi Cao & Tao Zhou & Jian Gao, 2024. "Heterogeneous peer effects of college roommates on academic performance," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-11, December.
    7. Jeffrey T. Denning & Richard Murphy & Felix Weinhardt, 2023. "Class Rank and Long-Run Outcomes," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(6), pages 1426-1441, November.
    8. Goller, Daniel & Diem, Andrea & Wolter, Stefan C., 2023. "Sitting next to a dropout: Academic success of students with more educated peers," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    9. M. Caridad Araujo & Pedro Carneiro & Yyannú Cruz-Aguayo & Norbert Schady, 2016. "Teacher Quality and Learning Outcomes in Kindergarten," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(3), pages 1415-1453.
    10. Wennberg, Karl & Norgren, Axel, 2021. "Models of Peer Effects in Education," Working Papers 21/3, Stockholm School of Economics, Center for Educational Leadership and Excellence.
    11. Ingo E. Isphording & Ulf Zölitz, 2020. "The value of a peer," ECON - Working Papers 342, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    12. Meschi, Elena & Pavese, Caterina, 2023. "Ability composition in the class and the school performance of immigrant students," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    13. Bertoni, Marco & Nistico, Roberto, 2019. "Ordinal Rank and Peer Composition: Two Sides of the Same Coin?," IZA Discussion Papers 12789, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Delaney, Judith & Devereux, Paul J., 2022. "Rank Effects in Education: What do we know so far?," CEPR Discussion Papers 17090, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Benjamin Elsner & Ingo E Isphording & Ulf Zölitz, 2021. "Achievement Rank Affects Performance and Major Choices in College [Gender, competitiveness, and socialization at a young age: evidence from a matrilineal and a patriarchal society]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(640), pages 3182-3206.
    16. Coveney, Max & Oosterveen, Matthijs, 2021. "What drives ability peer effects?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    17. Daniel Borbely & Jonathan Norris & Agnese Romiti, 2023. "Peer Gender and Schooling: Evidence from Ethiopia," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(2), pages 207-249.
    18. Aparicio Fenoll, Ainoa, 2021. "The best in the class," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    19. Fairlie, Robert W. & Oliver, Daniel & Millhauser, Glenn & Roland, Randa, 2024. "Estimating Peer Effects among College Students: Evidence from a Field Experiment of One-to-One Pairings in STEM," IZA Discussion Papers 17358, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Kiessling, Lukas & Radbruch, Jonas & Schaube, Sebastian, 2018. "The Impact of Self-Selection on Performance," IZA Discussion Papers 11365, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ces:ceswps:_11456. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.