Peer Effects on Violence: Experimental Evidence from El Salvador

Lelys Dinarte Diaz ()
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Lelys Dinarte Diaz: World Bank

No 16830, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Globally, 150 million adolescents report being victims of or engaging in peer-to-peer violence in and around school. One strategy to reduce this risk is to occupy youth in after-school programs (ASP). Yet, the question remains: how does peer group composition affect the effectiveness of an ASP? I address this question by randomly assigning youths to either a control, homogeneous, or heterogeneous peer group within an ASP implemented in El Salvador. I find that, unlike homogeneous groups, heterogeneous peer groups do help students avoid violence. These results are relevant to public policy discussions on optimal group composition for violence reduction programs.

Keywords: peer effects; violence; integration; tracking; after-school programs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I29 K42 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 85 pages
Date: 2024-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-inv, nep-law and nep-ure
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