Asymmetric peer effects in the analysis of cigarette smoking among young people in the United States, 1992-1999

Snacks, nudges and asymmetric peer influence: Evidence from food choice experiments with children in Indonesia

Many children in low- and middle-income countries are growing up during a rapid nutrition transition. Experimental evidence on food choice in developing countries is scarce, while it is unclear to what extent evidence from high-income countries can be generalized. Children participated in a snack choice experiment. We expose some children to emoji labels encouraging healthy snacks, while others observe healthy or unhealthy snacking by peers. While emoji labels moderately promote healthy snacking, the adverse effect of observing a peer eating the unhealthy snack is very large. The effect associated with observing a healthy peer is insignificant. Additionally, cross-randomized blocks of children watched a nutrition video to study the interaction of information provision and nudging. The video independently improves healthy choices but does not aid the emoji nudge and cannot counter the strong negative peer effect. We compare our findings to studies conducted in developed countries and discuss policy implications.

Peer effects in adolescent BMI: evidence from Spain

This paper extends the recent literature on the influence of peers on adolescent weight on three new fronts. First, based on a survey of secondary school students in Spain in which peers are formed by nominated classmate friends, we find a more powerful positive and significant causal effect of friends' mean BMI on adolescent BMI than previous US-based research. These results are in line with international data, which show that peer group contact tends to vary across countries. Our findings cover a large set of controls, fixed effects, the testing of correlated unobservables, contextual influences and instrumental variables. Second, social interactions are identified through the property of intransitivity in network relationships. Finally, we report evidence of a strong, positive effect of peer pressure on several subgroups of adolescents in an attempt to study their vulnerability to social influences.

What is learned from longitudinal studies of advertising and youth drinking and smoking? A critical assessment

This paper assesses the methodology employed in longitudinal studies of advertising and youth drinking and smoking behaviors. These studies often are given a causal interpretation in the psychology and public health literatures. Four issues are examined from the perspective of econometrics. First, specification and validation of empirical models. Second, empirical issues associated with measures of advertising receptivity and exposure. Third, potential endogeneity of receptivity and exposure variables. Fourth, sample selection bias in baseline and follow-up surveys. Longitudinal studies reviewed include 20 studies of youth drinking and 26 studies of youth smoking. Substantial shortcomings are found in the studies, which preclude a causal interpretation.