Candidate: Xin Gu

Dissertation Title: “Peer Effects and Human Capital Accumulation”

Abstract:

Human capital accumulation is not only an individual decision but also an interactive process. This thesis studies how peers affect individual human capital accumulation in the context of in-person education and online training. Firstly, the thesis examines classmate and close friend peer effects on the cognitive ability formation of middle school students. The results suggest that peers generate a significant positive impact on student cognitive ability development. The size of peer effects is heterogenous across student ability distribution and jointly determined by two channels, peer conformity and peer complementarity. Secondly, the peer composition depends on how a class is formed. Therefore, the thesis further tests whether randomizing or sorting middle school students into classes makes them cognitively better off. The findings indicate that randomization, compared to sorting, benefits students more in the longer term. Thirdly, the thesis investigates peer effects on the online training participation of young teachers. The virtual instruction platform data contain the accurate duration of attendance for every individual-lecture pair and allow for the control of individual, lecture, and peer group unobserved heterogeneity. The estimation shows significant positive peer effects on the likelihood of joining an online lecture and the duration of staying. The magnitude of peer effects differs by group and increases with the relationship closeness. The potential driving mechanisms are online social interactions, peer pressure, and reputation concerns. Fourthly, the thesis develops a two-step estimator that identifies peer effects on the duration of lecture attendance by accounting for the self-selection into lecture participation. The application to the online training data demonstrates significant positive peer influences on the duration of lecture attendance. Overall, the thesis finds strong evidence of causal peer effects on human capital formation in the traditional in-person environment as well as in the emerging online setting. It sheds light on how peer effects can be utilized to improve the effectiveness of human capital accumulation.

Committee:

Haizheng Li (advisor), Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology

Justin Burkett, Associate Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology

Patrick McCarthy, Professor Emeritus, Georgia Institute of Technology

Karen Yan, Assistant Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology

Daniel Kreisman (external member), Associate Professor, Georgia State University

Location: in person, Old Civil Engineering Building Room G10

Time: March 31 2023, 10am-12pm