Identifying sibling influence on teenage substance use

Joseph Altonji, Sarah Cattan () and Iain Ware
Additional contact information
Iain Ware: Institute for Fiscal Studies

No W13/04, IFS Working Papers from Institute for Fiscal Studies

Abstract: The large sibling correlations in risky behaviour between siblings raise the possibility that adolescents may directly influence the actions of their brothers or sisters. We assess the extent to which correlations in substance use and selling drugs are causal. Our identification strategy relies on panel data, the fact that the future does not cause the past, and the assumption that the direction of influence is from older siblings to younger siblings. Under this assumption along with strong restrictions on dynamics, one can identify the causal effect from a regression of the behaviour of the younger sibling on the past behaviour and future behaviour of the older sibling. We also estimate a joint dynamic model of the behaviour of older and younger siblings that allows for family specific effects, individual specific heterogeneity, and state dependence. We use the model to simulate the dynamic response of substance use to the behaviour of the older sibling. We find that smoking, drinking and marijuana use are affected by the example of older siblings, but only a small faction of the linke between siblings is causal.

Date: 2013-03-26
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.ifs.org.uk/wps/wp1304.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.ifs.org.uk/wps/wp1304.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.ifs.org.uk/wps/wp1304.pdf [302 Found]--> https://ifs.org.uk/wps/wp1304.pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Identifying Sibling Influence on Teenage Substance Use (2017)
Working Paper: Identifying Sibling Influence on Teenage Substance Use (2010)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:13/04

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
The Institute for Fiscal Studies 7 Ridgmount Street LONDON WC1E 7AE

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IFS Working Papers from Institute for Fiscal Studies The Institute for Fiscal Studies 7 Ridgmount Street LONDON WC1E 7AE. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emma Hyman ().