Empirics of Social Interactions

Abstract

Empirical studies of social interactions address a multitude of de¯nitional, econo- metric and measurement issues associated with role of interpersonal and social group in°uences in economic decisions. Applications range from studies of crime patterns, neighborhood in°uences on upbringing and conformist behavior, mutual in°uences among classmates and keeping up with roommates in colleges regarding academic and social activities, to herding and to learning about social services. The entry reviews several instances of successful identi¯cation of e®ects emanating from others' behavior as distinct from characteristics of others. Data sets with increasingly rich contextual information will allow estimation of complex models of economic decisions.Social interactions, peer e®ects, contextual e®ects, neighborhood choice, neighbors, neighborhoods, neighborhood e®ects, laboratory experiments, ¯eld experi- ments, self selection, social networks