This paper aims at opening the black box of peer effects in adolescent weight gain. Using Add Health data on secondary schools in the U.S., we investigate whether these partly flow through the eating habits channel. Adolescents are assumed to interact through a friendship social network. We...

In Southern Europe youngsters leave the parental home significantly later than in Northern Europe and United States. Policies have been implemented in Southern Europe to incentivize young adults to leave parental home earlier. Do peer effects among siblings amplify the effects of these policies?...

Using data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), this study analyzes peer effects on obesity in a sample of 3- to 18-year-old children and adolescents in China. Even after a rich set of covariates and unobserved individual heterogeneity are controlled for, it is evident that such...

In this paper I analyze adolescent peer effects on cigarette consumption while considering the 'popularity' of peers. The analysis is based on AddHealth data, a four wave panel survey representative of American high-school students. The data include the social network of each school, which we...