Empirics of the Identification of Social Interactions; An Evaluation of the Approaches and Their Results

.  Over the last decade, the study of social interactions in economic decision making has become an important area of research. The main objective of this paper is to survey the extent to which recent empirical contributions have succeeded in overcoming the identification problems as first formulate...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of economic surveys 2006-04, Vol.20 (2), p.193-228
Main Author: Soetevent, Adriaan R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Comparative analysis
Economic theory
Economics
Empirical research
Evaluation
Experiments
Identification
Methodology
Neighborhood effects
Public policy
Social interaction
Social interactions
Social multiplier
Studies
Surveys
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Summary:.  Over the last decade, the study of social interactions in economic decision making has become an important area of research. The main objective of this paper is to survey the extent to which recent empirical contributions have succeeded in overcoming the identification problems as first formulated by Manski (1993). This discussion is followed by a comparison of empirical studies in three key areas of research: neighborhood effects, substance use among teenagers, and peer effects among university roommates. Finally, I discuss questions like: Can economists restrict attention to a specific subcategories of social interactions? How do we define social groups, and what is the importance of social interactions for public policy?
ISSN:0950-0804
1467-6419
DOI:10.1111/j.0950-0804.2006.00280.x