Peer and selection effects on youth smoking in California

Brian Krauth ()

HEW from EconWPA

Abstract: A number of studies have indicated that peer smoking is a highly influential factor in a young person's decision to smoke. However, these results are suspect because the studies often fail to account for selection and simultaneity bias. This paper develops an econometric model of youth smoking which incorporates both peer effects and selection effects, and estimates its parameters using data on California youth. Identification is achieved by using the degree of selection on observables as a proxy for the degree of selection on unobservables. The results indicate that the influence of peers on a young person's decision to smoke is much weaker than is suggested by reduced form models.

Keywords: social interactions; peer effects; smoking; substance use (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-lab and nep-ure
Date: Written
Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 30
View list of references View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://129.3.20.41/eps/hew/papers/0408/0408002.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Peer and Selection Effects on Youth Smoking in California (2007)
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:wpa:wuwphe:0408002

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in HEW from EconWPA
Series data maintained by EconWPA ().