Essays on education production in China and the U.S.

Wei Ha

This dissertation explores the importance of three key education inputs--fellow students, teachers, and school size--in the production of education in the context of Chinese and American education system. The first essay examines the effects of roommates on students' academic performance by taking advantage of the randomness of the college roommate assignment system at a selective Chinese university for the class of 2008. I find that randomly assigned roommates' average pre-treatment academic abilities are not significant determinants of students' academic performance across a number of different specifications. However, students are likely to be influenced by roommates' decision in terms of number of course credits taking and choice of major. The second paper pinpoints the effects of teachers on students' grades at a selective Chinese university, utilizing the conditional random...