| Summary/Abstract |
We study sibling spillover effects on the school performance of the elder sibling from the younger sibling using data on multi-children households in rural China. Using a cumulative measure of expected lawful years in school as an instrumental variable, we find a significant increase in school test scores for Chinese language of elder siblings for every year of schooling of the younger sibling. The strongest spillover effects occur when the younger sibling is a girl. Such increases in test scores come from a more intense academic atmosphere within a household when both children enroll in school and are not attributed to differential parental education investments or time inputs. Our findings suggest that policies promoting girls’ education, pre-elementary school age education programs, and after school public resources can have multiplier effects through sibling spillovers.
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