American Economic Review Vol. 101 No. 5 2011

Peer Effects, Teacher Incentives, and the Impact of Tracking: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Kenya

Esther Duflo¹; Pascaline Dupas²; Michael Kremer³

¹ MIT Economics Department, 50 Memorial Drive, Building E52 room 252G, Cambridge, MA 02142. · ² UCLA Economics Department, 8283 Bunche Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095, NBER, CEPR, and BREAD. · ³ Harvard University, Department of Economics, Littauer Center, 1805 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138.

Abstract

To the extent that students benefit from high-achieving peers, tracking will help strong students and hurt weak ones. However, all students may benefit if tracking allows teachers to better tailor their instruction level. Lower-achieving pupils are particularly likely to benefit from tracking when teachers have incentives to teach to the top of the distribution. We propose a simple model nesting these effects and test its implications in a randomized tracking experiment conducted with 121 primary schools in Kenya. While the direct effect of high-achieving peers is positive, tracking benefited lower-achieving pupils indirectly by allowing teachers to teach to their level.

DOI

10.1257/aer.101.5.1739

Volume

101

Issue

5

Pages

1739-1774

Language

en

Sources

openalex bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref

Cite

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