Friendship Networks and Political Opinions

Yann Algan (), Nicolò Dalvit, Quoc-Anh Do, Alexis Le Chapelain and Yves Zenou
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Yann Algan: HEC Paris
Nicolò Dalvit: World Bank
Quoc-Anh Do: Monash University
Alexis Le Chapelain: Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) - Department of Economics
Yves Zenou: Monash University - Department of Economics; Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IUI); IZA Institute of Labor Economics; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); Stockholm University

No 1556, HEC Research Papers Series from HEC Paris

Abstract: We examine how social interactions and friendships shape students' political opinions in a natural experiment at Sciences Po, a leading French university specializing in social and political sciences. The quasi-random assignment of students into short-term integration groups before their academic curriculum reduces political opinion gaps and fosters friendship formation. Using same-group membership as an instrumental variable for friendship, we find that friendship reduces opinion differences by 40% of a standard deviation in the opinion gap. Our evidence supports a homophily-enforced mechanism: friendships form among initially politically similar students, leading them to join political associations together, reinforcing their similarity. However, friendship does not significantly influence politically dissimilar pairs. Instead, it reduces opinion divergence without enforcing ideological convergence.

Keywords: Political opinion; social networks; friendship effect; polarization; homophily; natural experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D72 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 89 pages
Date: 2025-04-15
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ebg:heccah:1556

DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.5184305

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