Coordination and Contagion: Individual Connections and Peer Mechanisms in a Randomized Field Experiment

Philip Babcock, Kelly Bedard (), Stefanie Fischer and John Hartman ()
Additional contact information
Kelly Bedard: Department of Economics, University of California, Santa Barbara
John Hartman: Department of Economics, University of California, Santa Barbara

No 1904, Working Papers from California Polytechnic State University, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper investigates peer effects at the level of individual connections, leveraging the approach to shed light on peer mechanisms. In a field experiment using college freshmen, we elicited best friends and offered monetary incentives for gym visits to a treated subset. We find large spillovers from treated subjects to treated best friends but none from treated subjects to control best friends. We also find evidence of a mechanism: Subjects coordinate by visiting the gym with best friends, indicating that the intervention harnesses complementarities in utility or commitment mechanisms. Results highlight subtle peer effects and mechanisms that often go undetected.

Pages: 54 pages
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-hea, nep-net and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EFFzPrrtH8yYTZQcC ... /view?usp=drive_link First version, 2019 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Coordination and contagion: Individual connections and peer mechanisms in a randomized field experiment (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpl:wpaper:1904

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