Identifying Peer Effects in Networks with Unobserved Effort and Isolated Students
研究同伴对学生努力的影响，提出一种新方法，区分不影响努力的GPA冲击与影响努力选择的偏好冲击，并利用美国高中生数据发现，传统以GPA代理努力得到的同伴效应估计比新方法低40%。
ABSTRACT Peer influence on effort devoted to some activity is often studied when effort is unobserved, and the researcher instead observes an outcome that combines effort with other shocks. For instance, in education, achievement measures such as GPA reflect both effort and idiosyncratic GPA shocks. We propose an alternative approach that circumvents this approximation. Our framework distinguishes unobserved shocks to GPA that do not affect effort from preference shocks that do affect effort levels. We show that peer effects estimates obtained using our approach can differ significantly from classical estimates (where effort is approximated) if the network includes isolated students. Applying our approach to data on high school students in the United States, we find that peer effect estimates relying on GPA as a proxy for effort are 40% lower than those obtained using our approach.