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This paper evaluates whether schools with more attractive peers are truly better in a value-added, causal sense. Using a fuzzy regression-discontinuity design that exploits admissions cutoffs at Boston and New York City exam schools, the analysis finds sharp peer shifts but little causal impact on test scores or college quality.",{"@graph":69,"@context":123},[70,84,106],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/the-elite-illusion-achievement-effects-at-boston-and-new-york-exam-schools-270934/270934/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/the-elite-illusion-achievement-effects-at-boston-and-new-york-exam-schools-270934/270934.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Ivy","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-22","2026-09-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":105},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",16,{"@type":107,"mainEntity":108},"FAQPage",[109,115,119],{"name":110,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":112},"What question does the paper investigate about exam schools?","Question",{"text":113,"@type":114},"It asks whether having more attractive peers improves outcomes in a causal, value-added sense rather than merely reflecting selection or correlations.","Answer",{"name":116,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":117},"How does the paper identify causal effects of peer characteristics?",{"text":118,"@type":114},"It uses a fuzzy regression-discontinuity design that exploits admissions cutoffs for heavily oversubscribed Boston and New York City exam schools.",{"name":120,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":121},"What do the estimates suggest about peer changes at admissions cutoffs?",{"text":122,"@type":114},"Marked changes in peer characteristics at the cutoffs have little causal effect on test scores or college quality.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":125,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":127,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":129,"site_id":62},270934,1789458654,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":132},{"doc_id":129,"user_id":133,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":134,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":135,"file_id":136,"file_url":137,"file_type":138,"file_size":139,"view_count":105,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":140,"language":141,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":142,"faqs":143,"seo_title":144,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":130,"read_time":145,"preview_page_count":4},549758252649,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/8000253669c5317157?_k=1778319167496531819","[http://www.econometricsociety.org/](http://www.econometricsociety.org/)  \nEconometrica, Vol. 82, No. 1 (January, 2014), 137–196  \nTHE ELITE ILLUSION: ACHIEVEMENT EFFECTS AT BOSTON AND NEW YORK EXAM SCHOOLS  \nATILA ABDULKADIRO˘GLU  \nDuke University, Durham, NC 27708, U.S.A.  \nJOSHUA ANGRIST  \nMIT, Cambridge, MA 02142, U.S.A. and NBER  \nPARAG PATHAK  \nMIT, Cambridge, MA 02142, U.S.A. and NBER  \nThe copyright to this Article is held by the Econometric Society. It may be downloaded, printed and reproduced only for educational or research purposes, including use in course packs. No downloading or copying may be done for any commercial purpose without the explicit permission of the Econometric Society. For such commercial purposes contact the Office of the Econometric Society (contact information may be found at the website [http://www.econometricsociety.org or](http://www.econometricsociety.org or) in the back cover of Econometrica). This statement must be included on all copies of this Article that are made available electronically or in any other format.  \nEconometrica, Vol. 82, No. 1 (January, 2014), 137–196  \nTHE ELITE ILLUSION: ACHIEVEMENT EFFECTS AT BOSTON AND NEW YORK EXAM SCHOOLS  \nBY ATILA ABDULKADIRO˘GLU, JOSHUA ANGRIST, AND PARAG PATHAK1  \nParents gauge school quality in part by the level of student achievement and a school’s racial and socioeconomic mix. The importance of school characteristics in the housing market can be seen in the jump in house prices at school district boundaries where peer characteristics change. The question of whether schools with more attractive peers are really better in a value-added sense remains open, however. This paper uses a fuzzy regression-discontinuity design to evaluate the causal effects of peer characteristics. Our design exploits admissions cutoffs at Boston and New York City’s heavily over-subscribed exam schools. Successful applicants near admissions cutoffs for the least selective of these schools move from schools with scores near the bottom of the state SAT score distribution to schools with scores near the median. Successful applicants near admissions cutoffs for the most selective of these schools move from above-average schools to schools with students whose scores fall in the extreme upper tail. Exam school students can also expect to study with fewer nonwhite classmates than unsuccessful applicants. Our estimates suggest that the marked changes in peer characteristics at exam school admissions cutoffs have little causal effect on test scores or college quality.  \nKEYWORDS: Peer effects, school choice, deferred acceptance, selective education.  \n1. INTRODUCTION  \nA three bedroom house on the northern edge of Newton, Massachusetts costs $412,000 (in 2008 dollars), while across the street, in Waltham, a similar place can be had for $316,000 .2 Black (1999) attributed this and many similar Massachusetts contrasts to differences in perceived school quality. Indeed, 92 percent of Newton’s high school students are graded proficient in math, while only 78 percent are proficient in Waltham. These well-controlled com-  \n1 Our thanks to Kamal Chavda, Jack Yessayan, and the Boston Public Schools; and to Jennifer Bell-Ellwanger, Thomas Gold, Jesse Margolis, and the New York City Department of Education, for graciously sharing data. The views expressed here are those of the authors and do notreflect the views of either the Boston Public Schools or the NYC Department of Education. Weare grateful for comments from participants in the June 2010 Tel Aviv Frontiers in the Economics of Education conference, the Summer 2011 NBER Labor Studies workshop, and the December 2011 Hong Kong Human Capital Symposium. Thanks also go to Jonah Rockoff for comments and data on teacher tenure in NYC. We are also grateful to Daron Acemoglu, Gary Chamberlain, Yingying Dong, Guido Imbens, and especially to Glenn Ellison for helpful discussions. Alex Bartik, Weiwei Hu, and Miikka Rokkanen provided superb researc","cbCaicV8LPcpJYmc","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaicV8LPcpJYmc","pdf",732452,61,"English","# Introduction\n## Background and Motivation\n## Research Design and Setting\n## Key Empirical Findings","[{\"question\":\"What question does the paper investigate about exam schools?\",\"answer\":\"It asks whether having more attractive peers improves outcomes in a causal, value-added sense rather than merely reflecting selection or correlations.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the paper identify causal effects of peer characteristics?\",\"answer\":\"It uses a fuzzy regression-discontinuity design that exploits admissions cutoffs for heavily oversubscribed Boston and New York City exam schools.\"},{\"question\":\"What do the estimates suggest about peer changes at admissions cutoffs?\",\"answer\":\"Marked changes in peer characteristics at the cutoffs have little causal effect on test scores or college quality.\"}]","THE ELITE ILLUSION: ACHIEVEMENT EFFECTS AT BOSTON AND NEW YORK EXAM SCHOOLS | PDF",154]