Sorting into Secondary Education and Peer Effects in Smoking
27 May 2015, 10:00 – 11:00
Filip Pertold
The start of daily smoking is often after re-sorting of students between elementary and secondary education. We employ a novel identification strategy based on the model of school choice, in order to estimate peer effects in youth smoking. Based on this model the self-selection is minimized by controlling for own pre-secondary school behavior and the pre-existing smoking prevalence among older schoolmates. The reflection problem is addressed by peers‘ pre-secondary-school smoking, which is not influenced by the current interaction. The empirical findings from the Czech Republic, where the prevalence of youth smoking has recently reached high levels, suggest that male youth smoking is affected by classmates, while female smoking is mainly driven by selection effect.