Siblings, Teachers, and Spillovers on Academic Achievement

Abstract

This study documents sibling spillover effects on child test score achievement using administrative school records from North Carolina. While teacher experience is a known determinant of student achievement, I show that teacher experience also affects the achievement of a child’s younger siblings. In contrast, teacher experience does not have an effect on the test scores of the child’s older siblings, suggesting that direct sibling effects rather than parental behavior responses are more important. These findings suggest that we are underestimating the importance of education inputs by ignoring the spillover effects on siblings.