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Dynamic Aspects of Teenage Friendships and Educational Attainment

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  • Patacchini, Eleonora

    (La Sapienza University of Rome, EIEF, IZA and CEPR.)

  • Rainone, Edoardo

    (La Sapienza University of Rome)

  • Zenou, Yves

    (Stockholm University, Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), GAINS, IZA and CEPR. Email:)

Abstract

We study peer effects in education. We first develop a network model that predicts a relationship between own education and peers’ education as measured by direct links in the social network. We then test this relationship using the four waves of the AddHealth data, looking at the impact of school friends nominated in the first wave in 1994-1995 on own educational outcome reported in the fourth wave in 2007-2008. We find that there are strong and persistent peer effects in education since a standard deviation increase in peers’ education attainment translates into roughly a 10 percent increase of a standard deviation in the individual’s education attainment (roughly 3.5 more months of education). We also find that peer effects are in fact significant only for adolescents who were friends in grades 10-12 but not for those who were friends in grades 7-9. This might indicate that social norms are important in educational choice since the individual’s choice of college seems to be influenced by that of friends in the two last years of high school.

Suggested Citation

  • Patacchini, Eleonora & Rainone, Edoardo & Zenou, Yves, 2011. "Dynamic Aspects of Teenage Friendships and Educational Attainment," Research Papers in Economics 2011:4, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:sunrpe:2011_0004
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    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Peer effects in education
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2011-03-14 18:50:00

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    1. Fabio Landini & Natalia Montinari & Paolo Pin & Marco Piovesan, 2014. "Friendship Network in the Classroom: Parents Bias and Peer Effects," Discussion Papers 14-06, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    2. Victor Lavy & Edith Sand, 2012. "The Friends Factor: How Students' Social Networks Affect Their Academic Achievement and Well-Being?," NBER Working Papers 18430, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Lin, Xu & Weinberg, Bruce A., 2014. "Unrequited friendship? How reciprocity mediates adolescent peer effects," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 144-153.
    4. Landini, Fabio & Montinari, Natalia & Pin, Paolo & Piovesan, Marco, 2016. "Friendship network in the classroom: Parents bias on peer effects," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 56-73.
    5. Tiziano Arduini & Alberto Bisin & Onur Özgür & Eleonora Patacchini, 2019. "Dynamic Social Interactions and Health Risk Behavior," NBER Working Papers 26223, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Díez-Amigo, Sandro, 2014. "The Impact of College Peers on Academic Performance: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Chile," MPRA Paper 62913, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Aug 2014.
    7. Martin, Darius D. & Wright, Adam C. & Krieg, John M., 2020. "Social networks and college performance: Evidence from dining data," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    8. Xu Lin, 2015. "Utilizing spatial autoregressive models to identify peer effects among adolescents," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 49(3), pages 929-960, November.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social networks; education; peer effects; identification strategy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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