Peer Pressure and Externalities: Evidence from a field experiment

Bruno Cardinale Lagomarsino, Matias Gutman (), Lucia Freira, María Lanzalot, Maximiliano Lauletta, Leandro Malchik (), Felipe Montaño Campos, Bianca Pacini (), Martín Rossi and Christian Valencia ()

No 125, Working Papers from Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia

Abstract: We provide experimental evidence on the effect of peer pressure on activities with externalities. Specifically, we study the effect of being exposed to an observer in a public restroom on hand-washing behavior. Our estimates show that being exposed to an observer increases the probability of hand-washing in 13 percentage points. We also observe urinal flushing behavior, with similar results. We find empirical support that peer pressure may provide an additional way of solving the social suboptimality arising from externalities.

Keywords: peer pressure; externalities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 13 pages
Date: 2015-12, Revised 2015-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-lam and nep-ure
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https://webacademicos.udesa.edu.ar/pub/econ/doc125.pdf First version, 2015 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sad:wpaper:125

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