A new GLO Discussion Paper using data from India reveals that enrolling in a selective college affects cognition, preferences and personality.

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GLO Discussion Paper No. 591, 2020

Effects of Peers and Rank on Cognition, Preferences, and Personality – Download PDF
by Dasgupta, Utteeyo & Mani, Subha & Sharma, Smriti & Singhal, Saurabh

GLO Fellows Utteeyo Dasgupta & Subha Mani

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Author Abstract: We exploit the variation in admission cutoffs across colleges at a leading Indian university to estimate the causal effects of enrolling in a selective college on cognitive attainment, economic preferences, and Big Five personality traits. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that enrolling in a selective college improves university exam scores of the marginally admitted females, and makes them less overconfident and less risk averse, while males in selective colleges experience a decline in extraversion and conscientiousness. We find differences in peer quality and rank concerns to be driving our findings.

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GLO Discussion Papers are research and policy papers of the GLO Network which are widely circulated to encourage discussion. Provided in cooperation with EconStor, a service of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, GLO Discussion Papers are among others listed in RePEc (see IDEAS,  EconPapers). Complete list of all GLO DPs – downloadable for free.

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