Peer Effects: Social Multiplier or Social Norms?

Yves Zenou, Eleonora Patacchini and Xiaodong Liu

No 9366, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: We develop an unified model embedding different behavioral mechanisms of social interactions and design a statistical model selection test to discriminate between them in empirical applications. This framework is applied to study peer effects in education and delinquent behavior for adolescents in the United States. We find that there are strong social multiplier effects in crime while, for education, social norms matter the most. This suggests that, for crime, individual-based policies are more appropriate while, for education, group-based policies are more effective.

Keywords: Group-based policy.; Individual-based policy; Social Networks; Spatial autoregressive model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A14 D85 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-net, nep-soc and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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