Setting a Good Example? Examining Sibling Spillovers in Educational Achievement Using a Regression Discontinuity Design

Using a regression discontinuity design generated by school-entry cutoffs and school records from an anonymous district in Florida, we identify externalities in human capital production function arising from sibling spillovers. We find positive spillover effects from an older to a younger child in less affluent families and negative spillover effects from a younger to an older child in more affluent families. These results provide empirical evidence that educational policies could create both positive and negative within-family externalities depending on the characteristics of the affected households.

CALDER Working Paper 217-0219 was originally published in February 2019, this is the second version, published September 2021.

This paper has been published in The Journal of Human Resources and can be found here, September 2021.