Peer effects on student achievement: evidence from Chile

This paper reports estimates of peer effects on student achievement, using a 1997 census of eighth-grade achievement in Chile. The data allow detailed measures of peer characteristics to be constructed for each classroom within a school. The paper addresses the endogeneity of peer variables by including school fixed effects that control for unobserved family and student characteristics. The estimates suggest that the classroom mean of mothers ’ education is an important determinant of individual achievement, though subject to diminishing marginal returns. Additional specifications using family fixed effects are not suggestive that estimates are biased by within-school sorting