Jérôme Larivière

Working Paper:

• From Rank to Label: How Early Academic Rank Shapes Educational Diagnoses and Mental Health Outcomes (solo-authored)

This study uses rich Canadian census and administrative data to examine the causal effects of early academic ranking on educational diagnoses and long-term mental well-being. Leveraging within-school-cohort variation among students with similar abilities, I find that moving from the 0th–5th to the 10th–15th percentile reduces learning disability diagnoses by 37% and mental health conditions by 12%. Conversely, shifting from the 85th–90th to the 95th–100th percentile increases gifted diagnoses by 44%, showing that teacher perceptions and behaviors are influenced by relative performance. Similar rank variation also lowers adult mental health challenges by 8% and reduces perceived learning difficulties by 25%.

Latest Draft June 2026

Work in progress :

• The Impact of Peer Departures on Career Progression: Slot Constraints and Wage Mobility in Firms

• Predicting Labor Force Types  (with Rui Castro, Jiyoung Kim, Fabian Lange and Markus Poschke)