Do Refugee Students Affect the Academic Achievement of Peers? Evidence from a Large Urban School District

Abstract

Much of the recent debate on refugee resettlement focuses on its perceived adverse effects on local communities. However, there is sparse credible evidence to either support or refute this perception. This paper contributes to an emerging literature on the externalities of refugee integration by providing evidence on how this population affects the academic performance of incumbent students. Leveraging variation in the share of refugees within schools and across grades, I find that increasing the share of grade-level refugees by 1 percentage point leads to a 0.01 standard deviation increase in average math test scores. While I find no effect on average English Language Arts (ELA) test scores, using nonlinear-in-means specifications I find evidence of negative spillovers in ELA performance among low-achieving students and positive spillovers among high-achieving students.