Peer Effects and Social Networks in Education

Antoni Calvó-Armengol, Eleonora Patacchini and Yves Zenou ()

No 814, CReAM Discussion Paper Series from Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM), Department of Economics, University College London

Abstract: This paper studies whether structural properties of friendship networks affect individual outcomes in education. We first develop a model that shows that, at the Nash equilibrium, the outcome of each individual embedded in a network is proportional to her Katz-Bonacich centrality measure. This measure takes into account both direct and indirect friends of each individual but puts less weight to her distant friends. We then bring the model to the data by using a very detailed dataset of adolescent friendship networks. We show that, after controlling for observable individual characteristics and unobservable network specific factors, the individual’s position in a network (as measured by her Katz-Bonacich centrality) is a key determinant of her level of activity. A standard deviation increase in the Katz- Bonacich centrality increases the pupil school performance by more than 7 percent of one standard deviation.

Keywords: Centrality measure; peer influence; network structure; school performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A14 C31 C72 I21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-hrm, nep-lab, nep-net, nep-soc and nep-ure
Date: 2008-11
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http://www.econ.ucl.ac.uk/cream/pages/CDP/CDP_14_08.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Peer Effects and Social Networks in Education (2008)
Working Paper: Peer Effects and Social Networks in Education (2008)
Journal Article: Peer Effects and Social Networks in Education (2009)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:crm:wpaper:0814

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