The Social Multiplier

Edward Ludwig Glaeser (), Bruce I. Sacerdote and Jose Scheinkman ()

No 9153, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: In many cases, aggregate data is used to make inferences about individual level behavior. If there are social interactions in which one person's actions influence his neighbor's incentives or information, then these inferences are inappropriate. The presence of positive social interactions, or strategic complementarities, implies the existence of a social multiplier where aggregate relationships will overstate individual elasticities. We present a brief model and then estimate the size of the social multiplier in three areas: the impact of education on wages, the impact of demographics on crime and group membership among Dartmouth roommates. In all three areas there appears to be a significant social multiplier.

New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent, nep-geo and nep-ure
Date: 2002-09
Note: LE LS PE
View list of references View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w9153.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html.

Related works:
Working Paper: The Social Multiplier (2003)
Working Paper: The Social Multiplier (2002)
Journal Article: The Social Multiplier (2003)
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: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9153

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w9153
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc
Address: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by ().