What Should I Aspire To? Peer Effects in Adolescents’ Friendship Networks
研究乌干达青少年在经济与社会追求上的同伴影响，发现朋友间的互动会显著改变个人对两种追求的优先排序，且互动越多、信息越相关时影响越强。
In sub-Saharan Africa, economic aspirations often conflict with aspirations to follow traditional social obligations. We test whether adolescents are influenced by friends when deciding which to prioritize. To do so, we elicit the preferences and perceived competition between economic and social aspirations of 553 Ugandan students, as well as their friendship ties. Using characteristics of nonoverlapping friends as instrumental variables, we identify strong peer effects. They are stronger with more interaction among friends, or when the information shared is more relevant or more important relative to other signals. We find no peer effect on the perceived competition between aspirations.