Dasgupta, Utteeyo and Mani, Subha and Sharma, Smriti and Singhal, Saurabh (2020) Effects of Peers and Rank on Cognition, Preferences, and Personality. The Review of Economics and Statistics. 0-0. ISSN 0034-6535
Singhal_ReStat_June2020.pdf - Accepted Version
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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.