Peer-induced beliefs regarding college participation

Citation

Boucher, Vincent; Dedewanou, F. Antoine; & Dufays, Arnaud (2022). Peer-induced beliefs regarding college participation. Economics of Education Review. vol. 90

Abstract

We study the heterogeneity of peer effects on the formation of beliefs regarding college participation. We present a structural model of learning in friendship networks. We show that the model is identified and we present a Bayesian estimation procedure. We estimate the model using data on teenagers’ beliefs regarding college participation, controlling for preferences and academic achievement. While we find that, on average, friends’ beliefs account for about 8% of the updating process, we also find strong heterogeneity among schools and individuals. In particular, we find substantial unobserved individual heterogeneity (ranging from close to 0 to more than 75%), which casts doubt on the efficiency of network-targeted public policies.

URL

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2022.102307

Keyword(s)

Social networks

Reference Type

Journal Article

Journal Title

Economics of Education Review

Author(s)

Boucher, Vincent
Dedewanou, F. Antoine
Dufays, Arnaud

Year Published

2022

Volume Number

90

DOI

10.1016/j.econedurev.2022.102307

Reference ID

9778