American Economic Journal:
Microeconomics
ISSN 1945-7669 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7685 (Online)
Like Father, Like Son: Social Network Externalities and Parent-Child Correlation in Behavior
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
(pp. 124–50)
Abstract
We build an overlapping generations model where an individual sees higher returns to adopting a behavior as many neighbors adopt the behavior. We show that overlap in the state of a parent and child's neighborhood can lead to correlation in parent-child behavior independent of any parent-child interaction. Increasing the sensitivity of individual decisions to the state of their social community leads to increased parent-child correlation and less efficient (more costly) behavior on average in the society. We show this model is distinguished from a direct parental influence model, in that it predicts increased generational effects, implying residual correlation between children and grandparents after including parental information. (JEL J12, J13, Z13)Citation
Calvó-Armengol, Antoni, and Matthew O. Jackson. 2009. "Like Father, Like Son: Social Network Externalities and Parent-Child Correlation in Behavior." American Economic Journal: Microeconomics 1 (1): 124–50. DOI: 10.1257/mic.1.1.124JEL Classification
- J12 Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure; Domestic Abuse
- J13 Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
- Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology