Interaction , prejudice and performance . Evidence from South Africa

We exploit random assignment of roommates in double rooms at University of Cape Town to investigate whether interaction with a person of a di¤erent race a¤ects inter-ethnic attitudes, cooperative behavior and academic performance. Our outcomes include Implicit Association Tests (IATs), survey-based measures, experimental games and administrative records. We …nd that living with a roommate of a di¤erent race signi…cantly reduces white students’prejudice towards blacks, as measured by the IAT. We also …nd increases in inter-racial interactions among friends and study-mates. The reduction in stereotypes is accompanied by a more general tendency to cooperate, as measured in a prisoner’s dilemma game and by participation in volunteering activities. Finally, we show important e¤ects of the policy on academic outcomes: blacks who share the room with non-black students signi…cantly improve their GPA, pass more exams and have a higher probability to continue university. The positive e¤ect on performance among black students is not driven by the ability of the roommate and is stronger the lower the degree of prejudice of the roommate. We thank Michael Kremer, Monica Martinex-Bravo, Rohini Pande and seminar participants at NBER Political Economy, IEA World Congress, CEPR Public Policy, EUDN, Boston University, Tufts, University of Turin, SciencesPo, INSEAD, Oxford, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Pompeu Fabra, EUI, University of Essex, IRVAPP and University of Cape Town for helpful comments. We are grateful to Selene Ghisol… for invaluable help with data collection and analysis. Nicola Fontana and Martina Zanella provided excellent research assistance. La Ferrara gratefully acknowledges …nancial support from the Fondazione Romeo and Enrica Invernizzi. The usual disclaimer applies. Burns: University of Cape Town, justine.burns@uct.ac.za; Corno: Queen Mary University, London, l.corno@qmul.ac.uk; La Ferrara: Bocconi University and IGIER, eliana.laferrara@unibocconi.it.