• Graduate program
  • Research
  • News
  • Events
    • Summer School
      • Climate Change
      • Gender in Society
      • Inequalities in Health and Healthcare
      • Business Data Science Summer School Program
      • Receive updates
    • Events Calendar
    • Events Archive
    • Tinbergen Institute Lectures
    • Conference: Consumer Search and Markets
    • Annual Tinbergen Institute Conference
  • Summer School
    • Climate Change
    • Gender in Society
    • Inequalities in Health and Healthcare
    • Business Data Science Summer School Program
    • Receive updates
  • Alumni
  • Magazine

Golsteyn, BartH.H., Non, A. and Zölitz, U. (2021). The impact of peer personality on academic achievement Journal of Political Economy, 129(4):1052--1099.


  • Affiliated author
  • Publication year
    2021
  • Journal
    Journal of Political Economy

This paper provides evidence of a novel facet of peer effects by showing that peer personality influences academic achievement.We exploit random assignment of students to university sections and find that students perform better in the presence of persistent peers. The impact of peer persistence is enduring, as students exposed to persistent peers at the beginning of their studies continue to achieve higher grades in subsequent periods. The personality peer effects that we document are distinct from other observable peer characteristics and suggest that peer personality traits affect human capital accumulation.