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Empirical researchers often consider a single determinant of labor productivity: speed. This paper asks whether they are neglecting spillovers on output quality. Using high‐frequency data on the speed and quality of strawberry harvesters' work, we offer novel evidence that two distinct workplace policies associated with increases in worker speed lead to similar decreases in the quality of their work. We find that both peer speed and wage changes boost worker speed and lower output quality; 10 percent increases in speed are associated with reductions in quality on the order of 1.5–1.7 percent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social and biomedical scientists have long been interested in the process through which ideas and behaviours diffuse. In this article, we study an urgent social problem, the spatial diffusion of hate crimes against refugees in Germany, which has admitted more than 1 million asylum seekers since the 2015 refugee crisis. Despite its importance, identification of causal diffusion effects, also known as peer and contagion effects, remains challenging because the commonly used assumption of no omitted confounders is often untenable due to contextual confounding and homophily bias. To address this long-standing problem, we examine causal identification using placebo outcomes under a new assumption of structural stationarity , which formalizes the underlying diffusion process with a class of nonparametric structural equation models with recursive structure. We show under structural stationarity that a lagged dependent variable is a general, valid placebo outcome for detecting a wide range of biases, including the 2 types mentioned above. We then propose a difference-in-differences style estimator that can directly correct biases under an additional causal assumption. Analysing fine-grained geo-coded hate crime data from Germany, we show when and how the proposed methods can detect and correct unmeasured confounding in spatial causal diffusion analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to explore the key factors affecting pig farmers' willingness to participate in a pig manure outsourcing treatment project (PMOTP) from the perspectives of transaction costs and peer effects. Survey data from 512 pig farmers and the probit and Heckman probit models were used to estimate the impact of transaction costs and peer effects on farmers' participation in the PMOTP. The results demonstrate that more than 62% of farmers are willing to participate in the PMOTP, and the average willingness to pay reaches 7.2 yuan/ton. Farmers' willingness to participate in the PMOTP decreases with asset specificity, transaction frequency and uncertainty but increases with peer effects. Moreover, peer effects attenuate the inhibitory effect of transaction costs on farmers' participation in the PMOTP. Heterogeneity analysis showed that large-scale farmers without the self-breeding and self-rearing model are more affected by transaction costs and peer effects than other farmers. Moreover, asset specificity and peer effects are likely to increase farmers' willingness to pay for the project, which suggests that larger farms are more willing to invest in the PMOTP. These findings provide a useful reference for establishing a model for sustainable environmental service projects in the farming industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmers' adoption of novel technologies is influenced by other farmers' behavior, a phenomenon known as peer effects. Although such effects have been studied intensively, the literature does not clearly distinguish between those that result (1) from verbal exchanges with other farmers and (2) from field observations, including the application of technology, its outcomes, and field conditions. We extend existing theoretical concepts and hypothesize that verbal information exchanges and field observations are two types of peer effects. Using data from an online survey of German sugar beet farmers' application of mechanical weeding from early 2022, we find that the likelihood of adopting mechanical weeding increases across all model specifications by around 26%–28% if at least one adopter is known and by approximately 30%–32% if at least one field is observed. The two types of peer effects complement and reinforce each other in explaining adoption decisions. The effects increase with the number of adopters known and fields observed but decrease with larger distances to the observed fields. The findings can support designing extension services and future peer effects research that should consider the distinction between peer effects arising from verbal exchanges and field observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates peer effects and agglomeration impacts on the cost efficiency of South Korean rice farms using a five-year panel dataset of production costs. We employed a time-varying stochastic frontier cost function approach to estimate cost efficiency and a linear-in-means model to quantify peer influences. The findings underscore peer effects as central to understanding and enhancing farm productivity, particularly in rice farming regions. Both specialisation and diversity of agglomeration positively influenced efficiency, with specialisation having a larger impact. Peer effects were stronger in highly rice-specialised areas. These findings indicate the necessity of incorporating peer influences and regional specialisation in agricultural policymaking for productivity enhancement. A nuanced, evidence--based approach leveraging peer dynamics and agglomeration economies is advocated to boost the efficiency of farming practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The slow rate of adoption of savings and transaction accounts opened under financial inclusion programmes is a challenge for policymakers across the globe. We use the experience of a large-scale financial inclusion programme in India—Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY)—to model the adoption of simple banking products, namely deposit, withdrawal, fund transfer and ATM usage. Based on account-level transaction data, we create a dataset to capture the adoption of each product over time. We use this data to estimate three growth models: Bass, Gompertz and logistic. The Bass model which is based on diffusion of innovations theory is found to be the best fit across products. The role of social influence in the diffusion of the four products studied is found to be much lower when compared to other products in subsistence marketplaces. Social network effect is comparatively stronger in the adoption of fund transfer and ATM. We discuss the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon and contend that information transfer by word of mouth and network effects are the most probable reasons for the observed adoption behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Management research has broadly categorized strategic motivations for corporate social responsibility (CSR) as profit-seeking or legitimacy, which are at times conflicting and complementary. The nature of firm motivations has significant implications for firm-level and societal outcomes yet is not directly observable. In this study I theorize that strategic motivations may be inferred based on observed performance relative to context-specific groups of relevant peer firms. I integrate economics and strategic management traditions to develop both a theoretical framework and an empirical model of peer effects and their underlying strategic motivations, and employ a novel instrumental variables estimation that exploits unique aspects of a recent innovation in dynamic industry classification. Results indicate that firms select referent peers based on strategic context and shed new light on the multi-dimensional nature of CSR strategies, revealing subtleties of firm behavior often masked by traditional empirical approaches. Contributions to theory and opportunities for future research are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use the setting of analyst coverage networks to shed light on the nature of peer effects in financial policies. First, we use the "friends-of-friends" approach and exploit the fact that analyst coverage networks partially overlap to identify endogenous peer effects, in which firms respond directly to the capital structure choices of their peers, separately from contextual effects, in which they respond to their peers' characteristics. We further show evidence that analysts facilitate these peer effects through their role as informational intermediaries. Analyst network peer effects are distinct from industry peer effects and are more pronounced among peers connected by analysts that are more experienced and from more influential brokerage houses. Finally, the analyst peer effects become weaker after exogenous reductions in common coverage as a consequence of brokerage closures. This paper was accepted by Victoria Ivashina, finance. Funding: F. Marcet acknowledges funding from ANID/CONICYT Proyecto FONDECYT Iniciacion [Grant 11221187]. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4891. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individual demand for emerging technologies can be influenced by the demand of other individuals within defined peer groups. These so-called peer effects have been demonstrated in emerging clean energy technologies such as rooftop solar. To date, peer effects have disproportionately driven solar adoption among relatively affluent households. Here, we use household-level income estimates of rooftop solar adopters to explore how peer effects drive adoption for low-income households. We find evidence of peer effects for both high- and low-income households and find that peer effects are generally stronger within than across income groups. Our results indicate that peer effects translate to adoption less frequently among low-income households. These results suggest that low-income peer effects are mitigated by barriers to low-income adoption. Heterogeneous peer influence is another demand shifter that explains the inequitable adoption of emerging technologies.

Copyright of Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The authors study how strangers become friends within an evolving online social network. By modeling the coevolution of individual users' friendship tie formations (when and with whom) and their concurrent online activities, the authors uncover important drivers underlying individuals' friendship decisions and, at the same time, quantify the resulting peer effects on individuals' actions. They estimate their model using a novel data set capturing the continuous development of a network and users' entire action histories within the network. The results reveal that similarity (homophily) with a potential friend, the properties of a potential friend's network, and the potential friend's domain expertise all play a role in friendship formation. Via prediction exercises, the authors find that stimulating anime watching is the most effective sitewide intervention, which leads to the highest overall site traffic and the largest number of active users, and that recommending a friend of a friend as a potential friend is the most effective strategy in stimulating friendship tie formation. In contrast to the common finding for static networks, the results indicate that seeding to users with the most friends is not the most effective strategy to increase users' activity levels in an evolving network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a model of treatment interference where the response of a unit depends only on its treatment status and the statuses of units within its K-neighborhood. Current methods for detecting interference include carefully designed randomized experiments and conditional randomization tests on a set of focal units. We give guidance on how to choose focal units under this model of interference. We then conduct a simulation study to evaluate the efficacy of existing methods for detecting network interference. We show that this choice of focal units leads to powerful tests of treatment interference that outperform current experimental methods.

The engagement of construction firms in corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gained strategic importance in facilitating the long-lasting transformation of the construction industry, particularly in light of the proliferation of sustainable development goals (SDGs). While previous studies have acknowledged the influence of regulative and normative pressures on CSR engagement, the impact of mimetic pressures, namely peer effects, on a construction firm's CSR engagement remains unexplored. In the diffusion of peer effects, limited information on CSR-related activities of peer firms hampers the observation and learning from each other, where the interconnections between firms through directors serving on multiple boards come into play as a valuable resource in presenting opportunities for mutual learning and knowledge sharing. Therefore, drawing on the neoinstitutional theory, this study seeks to address this research gap by conducting a multiple regression analysis using secondary data from 35 Chinese-listed construction firms between 2010 and 2020. Specifically, this study investigates how and to what extent peer effects shape a construction firm's CSR engagement through board interlocking ties and examines the moderating role of corporate governance mechanisms, such as ownership concentration and board independence. The results reveal the positive and significant influence of peer effects on the CSR engagement of construction firms through board interlocking ties. Moreover, the findings demonstrate that both ownership concentration and board independence serve as positive moderators in the relationship between peer effects and CSR engagement. This study contributes to the expanding body of research on the environmental, social, and governance practices of construction firms and provides novel insights into the role of board interlocking ties in promoting CSR imitation in the context of construction industry transformation. The findings not only broaden the understanding of CSR imitation among construction firms but also provide practical guidance for aligning the governance mechanisms of construction firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firms' decisions are not independent of their peers. This study aims to assess the impact of peer pressure on firms' dividend policy. In a sample of 29 firms from 2014-2020, this study employed a fixed effect regression model and revealed that Bangladeshi firms adjusted their dividend policy in response to their peers. Firms adjust the dividend payout ratio (DPR) by 5.6 percent as a response to their peers. Social learning theory, reputation-based model of peer influence, persuasion bias and rivalry-based theory of mimicking explain how peer influence affects a firm's dividend policy. The findings of positive peer effects on dividend policy are robust to an alternative proxy of dividend policy - dividend yield. Therefore, the study implied that managers' decisions regarding the dividend policy are not independent of their peer firms. Investors can adjust their expectations of a firm's dividend policy based on the overall dividend policy in the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under a randomized setting, this article finds workers with entrepreneurial ambitions—intended entrepreneurs—are (1) far more common than workers with past entrepreneurial experience and (2) increase the rate of entrepreneurship among their peers. Peer effects are persistent, stronger for tighter networks, and extend to the decision to join a startup. As intended peers explain half of the variation in entrepreneurship rates in our sample, our results demonstrate that intended entrepreneurs, even those that never personally start a firm, represent a vital component of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a general norm-dependent utility function with disutility for actions that are inferior or superior to a norm. We test its validity by assessing the moderating role of norm sensitivity in explaining responses to peer influences in a budget reporting experiment. Managers become less honest after seeing a less honest peer (the rotten apple effect) and more honest after seeing a more honest peer (the sterling example effect). We measure the sensitivity to social norms by the Maintaining Norms Schema score generated from the responses to the Defining Issue Test-2 moral reasoning questionnaire. We find that (1) the sterling example effect is significantly increased in an individual's sensitivity to social norms and (2) the rotten apple effect does not vary significantly with an individual's sensitivity to social norms. Our evidence supports inclusion of a disutility component for actions that are inferior to the norm in representations of personal preferences. JEL Classifications: C72, D03; J44; M41; M55. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Using the random assignment of university engineering students to peer groups during introductory freshmen weeks, this paper studies how a student's parental income and facial attractiveness affect the grade outcomes of peers. The results show that exposure to highly desirable peers with respect to socioeconomic background and beauty improves grades. The results operate chiefly through a direct spillover channel and also through an indirect marriage market channel, through which exposure to high‐desirability peers improves well‐being. A field experiment suggests that the marriage market mechanism is likely to be limited to students not currently in a romantic relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the role of social learning in the diffusion of cash crops in a resettled village economy in Brazil. We combine detailed geo-coded data on farming plots with dyadic data on social ties among settlers, and we leverage the variation in network formation induced by the landless workers' movement land occupation. By using longitudinal data on farming decisions over 15 years, we find evidence of significant peer effects in the decision to farm new cash fruits (pineapple and passion fruit). Our results suggest that social diffusion is heterogeneous along observed plot and crop characteristics, i.e. farmers growing water-sensitive crop are more likely to respond to the actions of peers with similar water access conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bolletta (2021) studies a model in which a network is strategically formed and then agents play a linear best-response investment game in it. The model is motivated by an application in which people choose both their study partners and their levels of educational effort. Agents have different one-dimensional types – private returns to effort. A main result claims that (pairwise Nash) stable networks have a locally complete structure consisting of possibly overlapping cliques: if two agents are linked, they are part of a clique composed of all agents with types between theirs. A counterexample shows that the claimed characterization is incorrect. We specify where the analysis errs and discuss implications for network formation models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Nankai Business Review is the property of Nankai Business Review Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Transformations in Business & Economics is the property of Vilnius University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We consider peer effect estimation in social network models where some network links are incorrectly measured. We show that if the number or magnitude of mismeasured links does not grow too quickly with the sample size, then standard instrumental variables estimators that ignore these measurement errors remain consistent, and standard asymptotic inference methods remain valid. These results hold even when the link measurement errors are correlated with regressors or with structural errors in the model. Simulations and real data experiments confirm our results in finite samples. These findings imply that researchers can ignore small numbers of mismeasured links in networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether changing the seating arrangement in a classroom can facilitate positive spillovers from top‐performing students to others, using a field experiment conducted in a Chinese high school. Among study groups with balanced abilities, the treatment altered the spatial distribution by assigning the two top students to seats in the spatial center of each group. In the reference groups where students were allowed to choose their own seating arrangements, the lowest performing were significantly less likely to sit next to a top student than they would be under a random assignment. The results suggest that, in the treated groups, there could be enhanced academic spillovers from the top students. The treatment especially benefited the two lowest performing students in science subjects. In contrast, the treatment exerted negative effects on the test scores of the two middle‐performing students, due to a disruption mechanism. The results suggest that the spatial layout of a peer network can have a significant impact on learning outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Contemporary Accounting Research is the property of Canadian Academic Accounting Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study investigates the relationship between peer effects and corporate capital structure with the intervening effect of industry concentration. The methodology involves instrumental variable approach in the regression results from OLS and two-stage least squares (2SLS) with fixed effects. Empirical evidence shows that peers’ leverage decisions are significant determinant for a firm’s leverage decisions. Moreover, peers matter more when firms are operating in the competitive environments and same is not true for firms belonging to concentrated environment. These findings imply that the financial policymakers may device customized policies for competitive and concentrated markets to restrict the downside risk of debt financing.

Gender norms affect girls' educational achievements. Yet, how norms are formed and what drives their changes are still open questions. This article examines peer effects on students' gender norm perceptions and skills formation. The study uses a Uruguayan nationally representative survey of ninth grade students and exploits the quasi-random variation in the proportion of female peers across classes within schools for causal identification. Results show that a higher exposure to female peers leads to more progressive gender norms. Furthermore, these effects are driven mostly by male students. Female students are also impacted by peers' gender composition and significantly reduce the time devoted to domestic work and improve mathematics scores when exposed to more female peers. No effects on language test were found for either gender. These results suggest that short peer interactions in secondary school contexts may have substantial effects on reducing gender stereotypes and change gendered behaviors among students. HIGHLIGHTS In Uruguay, higher exposure to female peers in the class leads to more progressive gender perceptions by male students. Class sex composition also reduces time devoted to domestic work and improves mathematics performance of female students. Even one-year peer interactions in secondary school may have substantial effects on increasing gender-egalitarian attitudes and behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Bundesgesundheitsblatt - Gesundheitsforschung - Gesundheitsschutz is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We exploit a unique data set from the Israeli Professional Football Leagues that provides high-frequency direct measures of players' effort to estimate effort peer effects in a high-skill collaborative team task. Using two complementary identification strategies, we find robust evidence of substantial positive peer effects. Our findings highlight that effort spillovers play an important role in team production and that even a change in just one worker's effort can substantially influence team effort and thus performance. Moreover, we present suggestive evidence that behavioral considerations are a relevant mechanism for creating peer effects even in highly skilled teams of workers. This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, behavioral economics and decision analysis. Supplemental Material: The data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4811. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of peer firm disclosures in shaping corporate research and development (R&D) investments. Drawing on models of two‐stage R&D races, I hypothesize that a firm could be either deterred or encouraged by peer disclosure of interim R&D success, depending on peer firms' R&D strength in the race. Using granular, project‐level data on clinical trials in the drug development process, I find that a firm's R&D investments in a specific therapeutic area are deterred by disclosures of early‐phase trial initiation from strong rivals in the same area but encouraged by disclosures from weak rivals. Cross‐sectional analyses show that focal firm strength and disclosure relevance moderate the effects of peer firm disclosure. Overall, my evidence suggests that peer firms' R&D disclosures can have both proprietary costs and deterrence benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the human capital consequences of rural-to-urban migration on left-behind children have been well-documented in developing countries, there is limited evidence regarding the social spillovers of parental migration on households without parent-child separation. This study investigates the effects of migration-induced left-behind children on household human capital investments in their non-left-behind peers. Leveraging the random student-class assignment within middle schools in rural China, we find that the share of left-behind children in class has significant negative impacts on household financial and time investments in non-left-behind classmates, especially out-of-school education expenditure. We also find heterogeneous effects demonstrating that the adverse spillovers are relatively larger among students who are boys, in grade nine, and from low socioeconomic status families. Further, our results suggest that exposure to left-behind classmates adversely affects non-left-behind students' perceived quality of school life, cognitive and noncognitive skills, and their parents' beliefs about returns of human capital investments. We interpret these findings as candidate mechanisms underlying the associations between parental absence and household investments in non-left-behind children. Our study sheds new light on the 'costs' of rural-to-urban migration in sending areas, which include not only welfare loss to families being left behind but negative spillover effects on non-left-behind households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effect of attending immigrant-dense schools on student outcomes, which consists of the joint effect of immigrant peers and school context. The sorting of students into schools is not random, and a large immigrant peer effect literature uses school fixed effects to eliminate selection bias. However, keeping schools fixed also eliminates the effect of the school context and is accordingly unsuited to estimate the total effect of attending immigrant-dense schools. By using both a value-added approach and by drawing on application data to manage selection bias, this paper demonstrates that attending immigrant-dense upper secondary schools in Norway increases student dropout, even though a school fixed effects model indicates no detectable immigrant peer effects. These findings suggest that immigrant-dense schools affect students in other ways than through mere peer exposure, and that research on the consequences of school segregation should take into account the effect of both school context and peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Technology Economics is the property of Chinese Society of Technology Economics and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Firms’ decisions are not independent of their peers. This study aims to assess the impact of peer pressure on firms’ dividend policy. In a sample of 29 firms from 2014–2020, this study employed a fixed effect regression model and revealed that Bangladeshi firms adjusted their dividend policy in response to their peers. Firms adjust the dividend payout ratio (DPR) by 5.6 percent as a response to their peers. Social learning theory, reputation-based model of peer influence, persuasion bias and rivalry-based theory of mimicking explain how peer influence affects a firm’s dividend policy. The findings of positive peer effects on dividend policy are robust to an alternative proxy of dividend policy – dividend yield. Therefore, the study implied that managers’ decisions regarding the dividend policy are not independent of their peer firms. Investors can adjust their expectations of a firm’s dividend policy based on the overall dividend policy in the industry.

Schools routinely employ seating charts to influence educational outcomes. Dependable evidence for the causal effects of seating charts on students' achievement levels and inequality, however, is scarce. We executed a large pre-registered field experiment to estimate causal peer effects on students' test scores and grades by randomizing the seating charts of 195 classrooms (N=3,365 students). We found that neither sitting next to a deskmate with higher prior achievement nor sitting next to a female deskmate affected learning outcomes on average. However, we also found that sitting next to the highest-achieving deskmates improved the educational outcomes of the lowest-achieving students; and sitting next to the lowest-achieving deskmates lowered the educational outcomes of the highest-achieving students. Therefore, compared to random seating charts, achievement-discordant seating charts would decrease inequality; whereas achievement concordant seating charts would increase inequality. We discuss policy implications.

The relationship between digital economy and signal information on firms‘ markup has been overlooked and not well explained, especially in the emerging economies. When there is information asymmetry or too much information, the export decisions of firms are not completed independently, but the result of the comprehensive trade-off of the export signals issued by the 'neighbors'. This paper discusses the impact of the development of digital economy on the markup of export firms by distinguishing two perspectives of export signal, namely herd behavior and peer effect. We find that the digital economy has a positive impact on firm markup. There is substitution effect in digital economy and export signals, and digital economy acts price bonus by influencing export signals. The growing popularity of market signals could offset some of the advantages of the digital economy on export markup for companies. In addition, our paper finds that foreign-owned firms, large-scale firms, highly competitive industries and non-digital economy industries adjust their markups more significantly when they were affected by export signals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reflecting the ongoing public concern about strategic behavior among colleges, we develop a game-theoretic higher education model with peer effects to examine the equilibrium market response to changes in state and federal student aid. In addition to establishing perfect equilibrium existence, we find that state and federal student aid programs are vulnerable to equilibrium effects that conflict with the intended impact of policy instruments. For instance, even when college objectives are devoid of selfish intent, strict increases in state and federal student aid can induce decreased student access to higher education or even increased financial strain from college enrollment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In addition to family and school factors, adolescent academic performance can also be influenced by the surrounding peer groups. Based on the data from China Education Panel Studies (CEPS) between 2013 and 2014, this paper examined the association between peer deviant behaviour and adolescent academic performance. It is found that peer deviant behaviour negatively predicted adolescent academic performance, and the negative association between peer deviant behaviour and academic performance in migrant and school-boarding adolescents was obviously weaker than that in native and home-resident adolescents. This negative association was slightly reduced but still significant after controlling for potential selection bias. More peer deviant behaviours reduced adolescent academic performance by increasing their own deviant behaviours and reducing their own educational expectation. Therefore, it is necessary to guide peer behaviours and interactions and regulate adolescent deviant behaviours from a global perspective to avoid negative peer effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We study whether receiving advice improves decisions in job search problems. • Advisors recommend a reservation wage and leave a text message to their advisees. • Advisors choose a low reservation wage compared to optimal choice. • When asked for general advice, they recommend an even lower reservation wage. • This downward bias is eliminated when advice is for the starting search period. We study experimentally whether receiving advice from an experienced decision-maker improves decisions in an infinite-horizon search task where individuals typically choose a lower reservation wage than the optimal value. In the experiment, advisors complete 10 rounds of search and leave advice to their advisees who also complete 10 rounds of search after seeing the advice. We find that advisors tend to recommend a smaller reservation wage than their own lower than optimal choices. They formulate recommendation based on their reservation wage choice in the period when they accepted an offer, which is typically their lowest reservation wage choice over the search spell. Advisees follow this recommendation and choose a reservation wage that is further away from the optimal value leading to significant treatment differences between the advisors and advisees. Eliciting advice specifically for the starting period of the search round does not result in such negative effect of advice. Overall, we find that receiving advice does not facilitate the optimal choice in the search task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to investigate the peer effects in financial investment of board-interlocked firms from the information sharing perspective. Based on board interlock and financial information of A-share listed nonfinancial firms in China, we construct board interlocking networks where firms share at least one board member in common and conduct an empirical investigation into peer effects in financial investment of board interlocking firms. The results demonstrate that peer effects are noticeably found in nonfinancial firms even after ruling out endogenous concerns by applying peers' peers' characteristics as instrumental variables, and carrying out robustness tests and placebo tests. In addition, the main manifestation of these peer effects is that firms with inferior quality information, i.e., poor financial conditions, low market capitalization, and higher stock idiosyncratic volatility, tend to follow companies that are perceived as having superior quality information in the above-mentioned areas. Firms located in the core position of board interlocking network or with more assets are more likely to be influenced by peers, because they can obtain more high-quality information. Different from existing studies, this paper provides a board interlocking perspective to the study of peer effects, which offers a new explanation for the expansion of financial activities of firms in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the drivers of climate-resilient seeds adoption among farm households and their corresponding spatial effects on farmers' neighbours adoption decisions in the semi-arid regions of Ghana, where the impacts of climate change on agriculture are marked. A spatial model was applied to a dataset elicited from farm households in addressing the research objective. The findings indicate the presence of peer or neighbourhood effects in the adoption and diffusion process. The findings also reveal that the socio-economic characteristics of the farm households, plot characteristics, drought condition and the source of information about the climate-resilient seeds influence farmers' adoption and information diffusion. Finally, the findings imply that drought condition and information from model farmers generate the highest spatial spillover effects on farmers' neighbours decisions to adopt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Household decisions to adopt rooftop solar photovoltaics are partly driven by social influence. Previous research on solar adoption influence has focused on influence among residential peers. Here, we expand the framework of solar adoption influence by exploring the influence of non-residential installations on residential adoption decisions. We use staggered differences-in-differences to estimate non-residential influence effects using a large data sample of residential adoptions. We also critically evaluate prevailing frameworks for solar adoption influence. We find that non-residential installations are associated with accelerated residential adoption rates, on the order of 0.4 additional residential adoptions per quarter per non-residential installation. We show that non-residential systems exert a continuous, long-term influence on residential adoption decisions. We explore separate results and influence mechanisms for solar installed on commercial buildings, government buildings, and houses of worship. The results suggest that non-residential solar adopters could serve as partners in policies to "seed" residential adoption in underserved communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the educational literature on peer effects, attention has been brought to the fact that the mechanisms creating peer effects are still to a large extent hidden in obscurity. The hypothesis in the study reported in this article was that the Frame Factor Theory (FFT) can be used to reveal such mechanisms. Using data from the Swedish TIMSS 2015 (N = 3761 students in 179 classes), a multilevel structural equation model (M-SEM) was specified in accordance with the FFT. As predicted, the SEM-model verified a strong relationship between class composition and a latent variable of limitations on instruction, a variable which in turn had a great impact on individual students' results in TIMSS 2015. The study hereby seems to reveal a fundamental mechanism of peer effects and provides evidence for the FFT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]