TY - JOUR
T1 - Self-selection and comparative advantage in social interactions
AU - Cicala, Steve
AU - Fryer, Roland G.
AU - Spenkuch, Jörg L.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments: Previous versions of this paper circulated under the title “A Roy Model of Social Interactions.” We are grateful to Gary Becker, Edward Glaeser, Bryan Graham, Richard Holden, Lawrence Katz, Steven Levitt, Franziska Michor, Bruce Sacerdote, Chris Shannon, Jesse Shapiro, Andrei Shleifer, Michela Tincani, Glen Weyl, as well as seminar participants at Harvard and Chicago for many helpful comments and suggestions. Brad Allan, Vilsa Curto, Tanaya Devi, Matt Davis, Ryan Fagan, Adriano Fernandes, Natalya Naumenko, and Wonhee Park provided excellent research assistance. Financial support from the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and Institute for Humane Studies [Cicala], the Education Innovation Lab at Harvard University [Fryer], and the German National Academic Foundation [Spenkuch] is gratefully acknowledged. Correspondence can be addressed to the authors at Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago, 1155 E 60th Street, Chicago IL 60637 [Cicala]; Department of Economics, Harvard University, 1805 Cambridge Street, Cambridge MA 02138 [Fryer]; MEDS Department, Kellogg School of Management, 2211 Campus Drive, Evanston IL 60208 [Spenkuch]; or by e-mail. The usual caveat applies. E-mail: [email protected] (Cicala); [email protected] (Fryer); [email protected] (Spenkuch)
Funding Information:
Previous versions of this paper circulated under the title "A Roy Model of Social Interactions."We are grateful to Gary Becker, Edward Glaeser, Bryan Graham, Richard Holden, Lawrence Katz, Steven Levitt, Franziska Michor, Bruce Sacerdote, Chris Shannon, Jesse Shapiro, Andrei Shleifer, Michela Tincani, Glen Weyl, as well as seminar participants at Harvard and Chicago for many helpful comments and suggestions. Brad Allan, Vilsa Curto, Tanaya Devi, Matt Davis, Ryan Fagan, Adriano Fernandes, Natalya Naumenko, andWonhee Park provided excellent research assistance. Financial support from the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and Institute for Humane Studies [Cicala], the Education Innovation Lab at Harvard University [Fryer], and the German National Academic Foundation [Spenkuch] is gratefully acknowledged. Correspondence can be addressed to the authors at Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago, 1155 E 60th Street, Chicago IL 60637 [Cicala]; Department of Economics, Harvard University, 1805 Cambridge Street, Cambridge MA 02138 [Fryer]; MEDS Department, Kellogg School of Management, 2211 Campus Drive, Evanston IL 60208 [Spenkuch]; or by e-mail. The usual caveat applies.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Authors 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of European Economic Association. All rights reserved.
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2018/8/1
Y1 - 2018/8/1
N2 - We propose a theory of social interactions based on self-selection and comparative advantage. In our model, students choose peer groups based on their comparative advantage within a social environment. The effect of moving a student into a different environment with higher-achieving peers depends on where in the ability distribution she falls and the shadow prices that clear the social market. We show that the model's key prediction-an individual's ordinal rank predicts her behavior and test scores- is borne out in one randomized controlled trial in Kenya as well as administrative data from the United States. To test whether our selection mechanism can explain the effect of rank on outcomes, we conduct an experiment with nearly 600 public school students in Houston. The experimental results suggest that social interactions are mediated by self-selection based on comparative advantage.
AB - We propose a theory of social interactions based on self-selection and comparative advantage. In our model, students choose peer groups based on their comparative advantage within a social environment. The effect of moving a student into a different environment with higher-achieving peers depends on where in the ability distribution she falls and the shadow prices that clear the social market. We show that the model's key prediction-an individual's ordinal rank predicts her behavior and test scores- is borne out in one randomized controlled trial in Kenya as well as administrative data from the United States. To test whether our selection mechanism can explain the effect of rank on outcomes, we conduct an experiment with nearly 600 public school students in Houston. The experimental results suggest that social interactions are mediated by self-selection based on comparative advantage.
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U2 - 10.1093/jeea/jvx031
DO - 10.1093/jeea/jvx031
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85054884643
SN - 1542-4766
VL - 16
SP - 983
EP - 1020
JO - Journal of the European Economic Association
JF - Journal of the European Economic Association
IS - 4
ER -