We examine search-based peer (SBP) groups proposed by Lee, Ma, and Wang (2015) and their relationship with commonality in liquidity. Our results confirm that SBP affiliation is a significant determinant of commonality in liquidity and, unlike market- and industry-commonality, SBP-commonality has...

In this paper, we investigate the impact of peers on own outcomes where all agents embedded in a network choose more than one activity. We develop a simple network model that illustrates these issues. We differentiate between the ‘seemingly unrelated’ simultaneous equations model where...

Economic literature has identified positive effects of peer abilities on individual achievement. However, the intuitive arguments supporting this evidence are not clear. This article presents a specific mechanism: cooperation and competition among group members; more precisely, the presence of...

Over the last millennium, the clan and the city have been the locus of cooperation in China and Europe respectively. This paper examines -- analytically, historically, and empirically -- the cultural, social, and institutional co-evolution that led to this bifurcation. We highlight that groups...

Many Social Interactions display either or both of the following well documented phenomena. People tend to interact with similar others (homophily). And they tend to treat others more favorably if they are perceived to share the same identity (in-group bias). While both phenomena involve some...

We explore the importance of appearance in the endogenous formation of groups using a series of experiments. Participants get to choose who they want in their group, and we manipulate the amount of payoff-relevant information on behavior, thereby making it costly to discriminate based on...