Peer-induced beliefs regarding college participation

Vincent Boucher, F. Antoine Dedewanou and Arnaud Dufays

Economics of Education Review, 2022, vol. 90, issue C

Abstract: We study the heterogeneity of peer effects on the formation of beliefs regarding college participation. We present a structural model of learning in friendship networks. We show that the model is identified and we present a Bayesian estimation procedure. We estimate the model using data on teenagers’ beliefs regarding college participation, controlling for preferences and academic achievement. While we find that, on average, friends’ beliefs account for about 8% of the updating process, we also find strong heterogeneity among schools and individuals. In particular, we find substantial unobserved individual heterogeneity (ranging from close to 0 to more than 75%), which casts doubt on the efficiency of network-targeted public policies.

Keywords: Social networks; Beliefs updating; College participation; Heterogeneous peer effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C11 C31 D83 I20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Peer-Induced Beliefs Regarding College Participation (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:90:y:2022:i:c:s0272775722000802

DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2022.102307

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