The Girl Next Door (are sex and studying substitutes?)

That is a new piece (pdf) by Andrew J. Hill, at the University of South Carolina.  It seems your child should beware the girl next door:

Parents are concerned about the influence of friends during adolescence. Using the gender composition of schoolmates in an individual’s close neighborhood as an instrument for the gender composition of an individual’s self-reported friendship network, this paper finds that the share of opposite gender friends has a sizable negative eff ect on high school GPA. The eff ect is found across all subjects for students over the age of sixteen, but is limited to mathematics and science for younger students. Self-reported difficulties getting along with the teacher and paying attention in class are important mechanisms through which the e ffect operates.

For the pointer I thank the ever-excellent Kevin Lewis.

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