An Investigation Into Religious Peer Effects

Author(s):  
Daniel Boon Yann Ooi

The communal nature of religion suggests peer effects exist in religiosity, potentially through positive spillovers in religious participation and social formation of religious beliefs. Using seven measures of religiosity, we estimate positive and negative peer effects in each case using peer group composition. We use a simultaneous equation model to account for self-selection into religious peer groups, and while we find positive peer effects are insignificant, there are significant negative peer effects operating through non-religious friends. This suggests peers affect social formation of religious beliefs, rather than through positive spillovers in religious participation.

2009 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 69-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
David S Lyle

Understanding how heterogeneity in peer group composition affects academic attainment has important implications for how schools organize students in group settings. The random assignment of cadets to companies at West Point affords an opportunity to investigate this issue empirically. Estimates of the impact of peer group heterogeneity in math SAT scores on freshmen-year academic performance reveals that more heterogeneous peer groups have positive effects on individual grades. High-ability peers account for most of the positive effect, while low-ability peers have no measureable effect. (JEL I23, J24, M54)


2018 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-143
Author(s):  
Nasim Shah Shirazi ◽  
Sajid Amin Javed ◽  
Dawood Ashraf

This paper investigates the impact of remittance inflows on economic growth and poverty reduction for seven African countries using annual data from 1992-2010. By using the depth of hunger as a proxy for poverty in a Simultaneous Equation Model (SEM), we find that remittances have statistically significant growth enhancing and poverty reducing impact. Drawing on our estimates, we conclude that financial development level significantly increases the remittances inflows and strengthens poverty alleviating impact of remittances. Results of our study further show a signficant interactive imapct of remittances and finacial develpment on economic growth, suggesting the substitutability between remittance inflows and financial development. We further find that 3 percentage point increase in credit provision to the private sector (financial development) can help eliminate the severe depth of hunger in the region. Remittances, serving an alternative source of private credit, can be effective in this regard. Keywords: Remittance Inflow, Poverty Alleviation, Financial Development, Simultaneous Equation Model


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 56-66
Author(s):  
Irma Linda

Background: Early marriages are at high risk of marital failure, poor family quality, young pregnancies at risk of maternal death, and the risk of being mentally ill to foster marriage and be responsible parents. Objective: To determine the effect of reproductive health education on peer groups (peers) on the knowledge and perceptions of adolescents about marriage age maturity. Method: This research uses the Quasi experimental method with One group pre and post test design, conducted from May to September 2018. The statistical analysis used in this study is a paired T test with a confidence level of 95% (α = 0, 05). Results: There is an average difference in the mean value of adolescent knowledge between the first and second measurements is 0.50 with a standard deviation of 1.922. The mean difference in mean scores of adolescent perceptions between the first and second measurements was 4.42 with a standard deviation of 9.611. Conclusion: There is a significant difference between adolescent knowledge on the pretest and posttest measurements with a value of P = 0.002, and there is a significant difference between adolescent perceptions on the pretest and posttest measurements with a value of p = 0.001. Increasing the number of facilities and facilities related to reproductive health education by peer groups (peers) in adolescents is carried out on an ongoing basis at school, in collaboration with local health workers as prevention of risky pregnancy.


2004 ◽  
Vol 79 (3) ◽  
pp. 545-570 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret A. Abernethy ◽  
Jan Bouwens ◽  
Laurence van Lent

We investigate two determinants of two choices in the control system of divisionalized firms, namely decentralization and use of performance measures. The two determinants are those identified in the literature as important to control system design: (1) information asymmetries between corporate and divisional managers and (2) division interdependencies. We treat decentralization and performance measurement choices as endogenous variables and examine the interrelation among these choices using a simultaneous equation model. Using data from 78 divisions, our results indicate that decentralization is positively related to the level of information asymmetries and negatively to intrafirm interdependencies, while the use of performance measures is affected by the level of interdependencies among divisions within the firm, but not by information asymmetries. We find some evidence that decentralization choice and use of performance measures are complementary.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1628
Author(s):  
Xiaoxu Dong ◽  
Cheon Yu ◽  
Yun Seop Hwang

This study investigates how reverse knowledge spillover (RKS) generated through outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) promotes sustainable development in an investment home country. Economic, social, and environmental dimensions are the pillars of sustainable development and their indicators are developed upon the concept of institutional quality. To this end, we use a balanced panel of 30 Chinese Mainland provinces from 2003 to 2016 and employ a simultaneous equation model to analyze the data in order to observe the direct and indirect effects of OFDI-induced RKS on sustainable development. The current study adopts several indicators to capture the economic, social, and environmental aspects of sustainable development. Additionally, we classify RKS into two types, given the investment destinations in terms of developed economies and emerging economies. On the one hand, our findings confirm that OFDI-induced RKS from developed economies facilitates domestic innovation but negatively affects progress on social and environmental development. On the other hand, OFDI-induced RKS from emerging economies is not conducive to domestic innovation, but it directly fosters sustainable development.


2021 ◽  
pp. 016502542199286
Author(s):  
Ellyn Charlotte Bass ◽  
Lina Maria Saldarriaga ◽  
Ana Maria Velasquez ◽  
Jonathan B. Santo ◽  
William M. Bukowski

Social norms are vital for the functioning of adolescent peer groups; they can protect the well-being of groups and individual members, often by deterring harmful behaviors, such as aggression, through enforcement mechanisms like peer victimization; in adolescent peer groups, those who violate aggression norms are often subject to victimization. However, adolescents are nested within several levels of peer group contexts, ranging from small proximal groups, to larger distal groups, and social norms operate within each. This study assessed whether there are differences in the enforcement of aggression norms at different levels. Self-report and peer-nomination data were collected four times over the course of a school year from 1,454 early adolescents ( M age = 10.27; 53.9% boys) from Bogota, Colombia. Multilevel modeling provided support for social regulation of both physical aggression and relational aggression via peer victimization, as a function of gender, grade-level, proximal (friend) or distal (class) injunctive norms of aggression (perceptions of group-level attitudes), and descriptive norms of aggression. Overall, violation of proximal norms appears to be more powerfully enforced by adolescent peer groups. The findings are framed within an ecological systems theory of adolescent peer relationships.


2017 ◽  
Vol 107 (2) ◽  
pp. 425-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Cornelissen ◽  
Christian Dustmann ◽  
Uta Schönberg

Existing evidence on peer effects in the productivity of coworkers stems from either laboratory experiments or real-world studies referring to a specific firm or occupation. In this paper, we aim at providing more generalizable results by investigating a large local labor market, with a focus on peer effects in wages rather than productivity. Our estimation strategy—which links the average permanent productivity of workers' peers to their wages—circumvents the reflection problem and accounts for endogenous sorting of workers into peer groups and firms. On average over all occupations, and in the type of high-skilled occupations investigated in studies on knowledge spillover, we find only small peer effects in wages. In the type of low-skilled occupations analyzed in extant studies on social pressure, in contrast, we find larger peer effects, about one-half the size of those identified in similar studies on productivity. (JEL J24, J31, J41, M12, M54)


2018 ◽  
Vol 108 ◽  
pp. 392-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Huntington-Klein ◽  
Elaina Rose

There is considerable interest in the success of women in overwhelmingly male environments. One hypothesized determinant of success is the increased presence of other women. However, the theoretical direction of this effect is uncertain. Previous studies of heavily male contexts have had mixed results. We take advantage of random peer group assignment at West Point military academy to identify gender peer effects in the first years in which women were admitted. We find that women do significantly better when placed in companies with more women peers. The addition of one woman peer reduces the gender progression gap by half.


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