Effects of Peers and Rank on Cognition, Preferences, and Personality

Dasgupta, Utteeyo and Mani, Subha and Sharma, Smriti and Singhal, Saurabh (2022) Effects of Peers and Rank on Cognition, Preferences, and Personality. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 104 (3). pp. 587-601. ISSN 0034-6535

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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.