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α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
This paper assesses the importance of school and neighborhood peers in shaping educational achievement, adolescent misbehavior, and adult crime. Using cohort variation within Charlotte-Mecklenburg County, we focus on the impact of peers whose parents have been arrested, which is strongly and independently predictive of worse outcomes. Results indicate that a 5 percentage point increase in school peers linked to parental arrest reduces educational achievement by 0.016 standard deviations and increases adult arrest rates by 5%. Additional evidence indicates that peer effects are primarily driven by interactions in schools rather than in neighborhoods.