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Are estimated peer effects on smoking robust? Evidence from adolescent students in Spain

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Abstract

Adolescent smoking is one of the most pressing public health problems. The objective of this paper is to analyse the influence of peer pressure on adolescent cigarette consumption. More concretely, we explore the significance and robustness of the peer effects using several estimation methods employed in the existing literature. On the basis of the data provided by the 2004 Spanish survey on drug use in the school population, we estimate the probability of being a smoker by two-stage models. The results reveal that when we use standard errors used in the literature the class peer variable appears to be significant. However, the class peer variable is not significant when we calculate more exigent standard errors, a result that is robust across all specifications. The paper suggests the need for a more cautious interpretation of the peer effects found previously in the literature until a deeper analysis confirms the robustness of the peer effects.

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Notes

  1. In general, the literature that estimated Probit models reported the standard errors of the second stage with the robust option, but without correcting for the generated peer regressor [see, for example, Lundborg (2006) or Clark and Lohéac (2007)].

  2. As Krauth (2007) pointed out, in most cases it is only possible to distinguish between endogenous and contextual effects by assuming that one or the other is absent. Thus, as Lundborg (2006) pointed out, using measures of peer effects at the class-level, the importance of the contextual effects will be reduced, since when the reference group is broader, pupils are likely less exposed to the family background of their peers, and thus the observed peer effects are more likely to be caused by endogenous rather than contextual effects.

  3. Thus, the final sample size is 10,666 individuals, of which 10,102 can be used in our estimations. According to our data set, first smoking decisions are mostly taken by Spanish adolescents before age 16. Specifically, 23.13 % of respondents aged 15 are smokers. Although it is difficult to generalize the results of the paper to broader age groups, we feel we are justified in doing so, since (i) this figure of 23.13 % of smokers among people who are 15 years old is a significant proportion of future smokers (37 % male, 28 % female according to the 2008 WHO report), (ii) the fact that we are using a large sample with more than 10,000 students, and (iii) the fact that the estimated marginal peer effects (0.558) are in the normal range found in the literature. Nevertheless, a caution must be introduced regarding the different gender composition of the adolescent and adult populations.

  4. The first-stage estimates are available upon request.

  5. In order to check the stability and, therefore, the robustness of these results, we estimate a linear probability model with the same three versions of the standard errors used in the Probit models. Once again, our results provide evidence that the peer effect is not robust when more restrictive standard errors, accounting for the cluster nature of the data, are considered. It should be noted that this conclusion is robust to several specifications, that is to say, in the linear probability model and in the Probit model with two estimation approaches. The estimates of the linear probability model are available upon request.

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Acknowledgments

This work was carried out under project ECO2012-34828 financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economics. The authors thanks the comments received from two anonymous referees. The usual disclaimers apply.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economic Analysis, University of Zaragoza, Gran Vía, 2, 50005 , Zaragoza, Spain

    R. Duarte, J. -J. Escario & J. -A. Molina

  2. Institute for the Study of Labor-IZA, Bonn, Germany

    J. -A. Molina

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  1. R. Duarte
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  2. J. -J. Escario
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  3. J. -A. Molina
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Correspondence to J. -J. Escario.

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Duarte, R., Escario, J.J. & Molina, J.A. Are estimated peer effects on smoking robust? Evidence from adolescent students in Spain. Empir Econ 46, 1167–1179 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-013-0704-7

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