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H2020Individual fellowship2015–2017

PEERS · Peer effects and endogenous network formation

Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2015-06-01 → 2017-05-31
EU contribution
€158,122
Participants
1
Scheme
MSCA-IF-EF-ST

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Results in brief

Peer effects and endogenous network formation

Strong correlations between the behavior of individuals and their peers have been observed by research groups throughout the world in a variety of contexts. In particular such correlations have been repeatedly observed in academic settings, pertaining a wide range of personal characteristics and behaviors, including academic achievement. One major challenge encountered by this literature from the outset is that it is very difficult to disentangle the part of this correlation that stems from assortativity or selection (the tendency of individuals to build relations with similar others) from the part that stems from actual peer influence. The main objective of the project was to construct a structural model and estimate it using a very rich dataset related to academic achievement, and study networks in a European higher education institution. Understanding how much individuals influence each other in academic contexts is fundamental for informing policies on academic tracking and optimal group creation.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

The aim of this project is to develop a theoretical and empirical framework to simultaneously study network formation and peer effects in education. The problem is important from a methodological perspective, as there do not exist general purpose estimatable models of social dynamics in Economics which treat the network formation process as endogenous and simultaneously contemplate network effects on behaviour and its feedback on the network formation process. The possibility of understanding the formation of social networks in terms of the characteristics of the agents forming links is severely limited in most applications by the presence of peer effects that alter these characteristics. Conversely one of the main difficulties in measuring peer effects in any context is that peer groups are endogenous. This project will have two main components (1) a theoretical component and (2) an empirical/experimental component. The theoretical component aims to construct and study in detail the properties of some models of peer effects treating network formation endogenously. In the empirical/experimental component I will estimate and test the models by (a) Relying on two datasets, one of which already exists and one of which is under construction, and which I am currently using on two related projects and (b) Building a detailed longitudinal dataset including information on social network structure and various kinds of behaviours and attitudes using surveys and economic experiments .

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

  • FUNDACIÓ MARKETS, ORGANIZATIONS AND VOTES IN ECONOMICS · Cerdanyola Del VallèsCoordinatorSpain

Links

Data: CORDIS, © European Union