Having the wrong friends? Peer effects in adolescent substance use.
Swedish cross-sectional survey data on young individuals aged 12-18-year-old was used to analyse school-class based peer effects in binge drinking, smoking and illicit-drug use. Significant and positive peer effects were found for all three activities. By introducing school/grade fixed effects, the estimated peer effects were identified by variation in peer behaviour across school-classes within schools and grades, implying that estimates were not biased due to endogenous sorting of students across schools. Further, endogeneity bias due to bi-directionality of peer effects was found for binge drinking and smoking. Controlling for this source of endogeneity resulted in even stronger peer effects.
Lundborg
Petter
P
Lund University Centre for Health Economics (LUCHE), P.O. Box 705, 220 07 Lund, Sweden. petter.lundborg@luche.lu.se
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010379:Peer Group; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013548:Sweden; D014481:United States