IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/phsmap/v658y2025ics0378437124008070.html

A statistical mechanics approach to measure peer-to-peer effects in Pharma research and development investments

Author

Listed:
  • Ferrari, Mascia
  • Fedele, Micaela
  • Luzi, Rachele
  • Vernia, Cecilia

Abstract

A multi-populated mean-field model applied on financial data from U.S. pharmaceutical and biotechnological companies is used to measure if a company investing in Research and Development (R&D) is influenced by the interaction with other firms (peer-to-peer effect). This model allows us to estimate the mutual influence among firms as well as their own inner propensity to invest in R&D. Our database covers the period 1989–2012. We validate our results out of sample by comparing them with the data of the period 2013–2019.

Suggested Citation

  • Ferrari, Mascia & Fedele, Micaela & Luzi, Rachele & Vernia, Cecilia, 2025. "A statistical mechanics approach to measure peer-to-peer effects in Pharma research and development investments," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 658(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:658:y:2025:i:c:s0378437124008070
    DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2024.130297
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437124008070
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.physa.2024.130297?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matthew O. Jackson, 2014. "Networks in the Understanding of Economic Behaviors," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(4), pages 3-22, Fall.
    2. William A. Brock & Steven N. Durlauf, 2001. "Discrete Choice with Social Interactions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 68(2), pages 235-260.
    3. Quentin Michard & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, 2005. "Theory of collective opinion shifts: from smooth trends to abrupt swings," Science & Finance (CFM) working paper archive 500060, Science & Finance, Capital Fund Management.
    4. Venkat Venkatasubramanian & Yu Luo & Jay Sethuraman, 2014. "Game Theory, Statistical Mechanics and Income Inequality," Papers 1406.6620, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2014.
    5. Charles F. Manski, 2000. "Economic Analysis of Social Interactions," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 115-136, Summer.
    6. Henry G. Grabowski, 1968. "The Determinants of Industrial Research and Development: A Study of the Chemical, Drug, and Petroleum Industries," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 76(2), pages 292-292.
    7. Peter Arcidiacono & Gigi Foster & Natalie Goodpaster & Josh Kinsler, 2012. "Estimating spillovers using panel data, with an application to the classroom," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 3(3), pages 421-470, November.
    8. Pierluigi Contucci & Stefano Ghirlanda, 2007. "Modeling society with statistical mechanics: an application to cultural contact and immigration," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 41(4), pages 569-578, August.
    9. Bettina Becker, 2013. "The Determinants of R&D Investment: A Survey of the Empirical Research," Discussion Paper Series 2013_09, Department of Economics, Loughborough University, revised Sep 2013.
    10. Paul M. Healy & Stewart C. Myers & Christopher D. Howe, 2002. "R&D Accounting and the Tradeoff Between Relevance and Objectivity," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(3), pages 677-710, June.
    11. Bronwyn H. Hall & Jacques Mairesse & Benoit Mulkay, 1998. "Does cash flow cause investment and R&D: an exploration using panel data for French, Japanes and United States scientific firms," IFS Working Papers W98/11, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    12. Benoît Mulkay & Bronwyn H, Hall & Jacques Mairesse, 2000. "Firm Level Investment and R&D in France and the United States : A Comparison," Working Papers 2000-49, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    13. Q. Michard & J.-P. Bouchaud, 2005. "Theory of collective opinion shifts: from smooth trends to abrupt swings," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 47(1), pages 151-159, September.
    14. David Hirshleifer & Siew Hong Teoh, 2003. "Herd Behaviour and Cascading in Capital Markets: a Review and Synthesis," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 9(1), pages 25-66, March.
    15. Lev, Baruch & Sougiannis, Theodore, 1996. "The capitalization, amortization, and value-relevance of R&D," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 107-138, February.
    16. Brock, William A. & Durlauf, Steven N., 2001. "Interactions-based models," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 54, pages 3297-3380, Elsevier.
    17. Carter Bloch, 2005. "R&D investment and internal finance: the cash flow effect," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(3), pages 213-223.
    18. Jane Cooley Fruehwirth, 2014. "Can Achievement Peer Effect Estimates Inform Policy? A View from Inside the Black Box," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(3), pages 514-523, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lin, Zhongjian & Hu, Yingyao, 2024. "Binary choice with misclassification and social interactions, with an application to peer effects in attitude," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 238(1).
    2. Denis Phan, 2006. "Discrete Choices under Social Influence:Generic Properties," Post-Print halshs-00105857, HAL.
    3. Mirta B. Gordon & Jean-Pierre Nadal & Denis Phan & Viktoriya Semeshenko, 2012. "Entanglement between Demand and Supply in Markets with Bandwagon Goods," Papers 1209.1321, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2012.
    4. Steven N. Durlauf & Yannis M. Ioannides, 2010. "Social Interactions," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 451-478, September.
    5. Yann Bramoullé & Habiba Djebbari & Bernard Fortin, 2020. "Peer Effects in Networks: A Survey," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 603-629, August.
    6. Blume,L.E. & Durlauf,S.N., 2005. "Identifying social interactions : a review," Working papers 12, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    7. Hsieh, Hsu-Sheng, 2020. "Transport policy evaluation based on elasticity analysis with social interactions," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 273-296.
    8. Fortin, Bernard & Lacroix, Guy & Villeval, Marie-Claire, 2007. "Tax evasion and social interactions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(11-12), pages 2089-2112, December.
    9. Hesselius, Patrik & Johansson, Per & Vikström, Johan, 2008. "Monitoring and norms in sickness insurance: empirical evidence from a natural experiment," Working Paper Series 2008:8, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    10. Xin Gu & Haizheng Li & Zhongjian Lin & Xun Tang, 2025. "Peer effects with sample selection: an application in online job training," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 69(5), pages 2973-3000, November.
    11. Didier SORNETTE, 2014. "Physics and Financial Economics (1776-2014): Puzzles, Ising and Agent-Based Models," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 14-25, Swiss Finance Institute.
    12. Galbiati, Roberto & Zanella, Giulio, 2012. "The tax evasion social multiplier: Evidence from Italy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(5), pages 485-494.
    13. Hall, Bronwyn H. & Oriani, Raffaele, 2006. "Does the market value R&D investment by European firms? Evidence from a panel of manufacturing firms in France, Germany, and Italy," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 971-993, September.
    14. ÖZGÜR, Onur & BISIN, Alberto, 2011. "Dynamic Linear Economies with Social Interactions," Cahiers de recherche 04-2011, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    15. Ioannides, Yannis M., 2015. "Neighborhoods to nations via social interactions," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 5-15.
    16. Morey, Edward R. & Kritzberg, David, 2012. "It's not where you do it, it's who you do it with?," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 176-191.
    17. Seth Richards‐Shubik, 2015. "Peer effects in sexual initiation: Separating demand and supply mechanisms," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 6(3), pages 663-702, November.
    18. Brock, William A. & Durlauf, Steven N., 2007. "Identification of binary choice models with social interactions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 140(1), pages 52-75, September.
    19. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/2jbidihgpo8bia7dbd5ipjlsi9 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Chih‐Sheng Hsieh & Lung‐Fei Lee & Vincent Boucher, 2020. "Specification and estimation of network formation and network interaction models with the exponential probability distribution," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(4), pages 1349-1390, November.
    21. Semih Tumen & Tugba Zeydanli, 2015. "Is Happiness Contagious? Separating Spillover Externalities from the Group-Level Social Context," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 719-744, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:658:y:2025:i:c:s0378437124008070. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/physica-a-statistical-mechpplications/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.