[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lvl/criacr/1507.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Peer Effects, Fast Food Consumption and Adolescent Weight Gain

Author

Listed:
  • Bernard Fortin
  • Myra Yazbeck
Abstract
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 effects partly flow through the eating habits channel. Adolescents are assumed to interact through a friendship social network. We propose a two-equation model. The first equation provides a social interaction model of fast food consumption. To estimate this equation we use a quasi maximum likelihood approach that allows us to control for common environment at the network level and to solve the simultaneity (reflection) problem. Our second equation is a panel dynamic weight production function relating an individual’s Body Mass Index z-score (zBMI) to his fast food consumption and his lagged zBMI, and allowing for irregular intervals in the data. Results show that there are positive but small peer effects in fast food consumption among adolescents belonging to a same friendship school network. Based on our preferred specification, the estimated social multiplier is 1.15. Our results also suggest that,in the long run, an extra day of weekly fast food restaurant visits increases zBMI by 4.45% when ignoring peer effects and by 5.11%, when they are taken into account.

Suggested Citation

  • Bernard Fortin & Myra Yazbeck, 2015. "Peer Effects, Fast Food Consumption and Adolescent Weight Gain," Cahiers de recherche 1507, Chaire de recherche Industrielle Alliance sur les enjeux économiques des changements démographiques.
    • Handle: RePEc:lvl:criacr:1507
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cedia.ca/sites/cedia.ca/files/cahier_15-07_fasfoodpeers.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lawrence E. Blume & William A. Brock & Steven N. Durlauf & Rajshri Jayaraman, 2015. "Linear Social Interactions Models," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(2), pages 444-496.
    2. Bramoullé, Yann & Djebbari, Habiba & Fortin, Bernard, 2009. "Identification of peer effects through social networks," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 150(1), pages 41-55, May.
    3. Mir M. Ali & Aliaksandr Amialchuk & Francesco Renna, 2011. "Social Network and Weight Misperception among Adolescents," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 77(4), pages 827-842, April.
    4. Kelejian, Harry H & Prucha, Ingmar R, 1998. "A Generalized Spatial Two-Stage Least Squares Procedure for Estimating a Spatial Autoregressive Model with Autoregressive Disturbances," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 99-121, July.
    5. Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham & Guido W. Imbens, 2013. "Social Networks and the Identification of Peer Effects," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(3), pages 253-264, July.
    6. Hausman, Jerry A & Taylor, William E, 1981. "Panel Data and Unobservable Individual Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1377-1398, November.
    7. Kelejian, Harry H. & Prucha, Ingmar R., 2010. "Specification and estimation of spatial autoregressive models with autoregressive and heteroskedastic disturbances," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 157(1), pages 53-67, July.
    8. Dunn, Richard A. & Sharkey, Joseph R. & Horel, Scott, 2012. "The effect of fast-food availability on fast-food consumption and obesity among rural residents: An analysis by race/ethnicity," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 1-13.
    9. Janet Currie & Stefano DellaVigna & Enrico Moretti & Vikram Pathania, 2010. "The Effect of Fast Food Restaurants on Obesity and Weight Gain," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 32-63, August.
    10. Cohen-Cole, Ethan & Fletcher, Jason M., 2008. "Is obesity contagious? Social networks vs. environmental factors in the obesity epidemic," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 1382-1387, September.
    11. David M. Cutler & Edward L. Glaeser & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2003. "Why Have Americans Become More Obese?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 93-118, Summer.
    12. Trogdon, Justin G. & Nonnemaker, James & Pais, Joanne, 2008. "Peer effects in adolescent overweight," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 1388-1399, September.
    13. Powell, Lisa M. & Bao, Yanjun, 2009. "Food prices, access to food outlets and child weight," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 64-72, March.
    14. Tyler J. VanderWeele, 2011. "Sensitivity Analysis for Contagion Effects in Social Networks," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 40(2), pages 240-255, May.
    15. M. Christopher Auld & Lisa M. Powell, 2009. "Economics of Food Energy Density and Adolescent Body Weight," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 76(304), pages 719-740, October.
    16. Patacchini, Eleonora & Liu, Xiaodong & Rainone, Edoardo, 2013. "The Allocation of Time in Sleep: a Social Network Model with Sampled Data," CEPR Discussion Papers 9752, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Olga Yakusheva & Kandice A. Kapinos & Daniel Eisenberg, 2014. "Estimating Heterogeneous and Hierarchical Peer Effects on Body Weight Using Roommate Assignments as a Natural Experiment," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 49(1), pages 234-261.
    18. Cosma Rohilla Shalizi & Andrew C. Thomas, 2011. "Homophily and Contagion Are Generically Confounded in Observational Social Network Studies," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 40(2), pages 211-239, May.
    19. Boucher, Vincent, 2016. "Conformism and self-selection in social networks," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 30-44.
    20. Powell, Lisa M., 2009. "Fast food costs and adolescent body mass index: Evidence from panel data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 963-970, September.
    21. Charles F. Manski, 1993. "Identification of Endogenous Social Effects: The Reflection Problem," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(3), pages 531-542.
    22. Alviola, Pedro A. & Nayga, Rodolfo M. & Thomsen, Michael R. & Danforth, Diana & Smartt, James, 2014. "The effect of fast-food restaurants on childhood obesity: A school level analysis," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 110-119.
    23. Gary Charness & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Incentives to Exercise," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 909-931, May.
    24. Michael L. Anderson & David A. Matsa, 2011. "Are Restaurants Really Supersizing America?," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 152-188, January.
    25. Yakusheva, Olga & Kapinos, Kandice & Weiss, Marianne, 2011. "Peer effects and the Freshman 15: Evidence from a natural experiment," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 119-132, March.
    26. Mark Aguiar & Erik Hurst, 2005. "Consumption versus Expenditure," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(5), pages 919-948, October.
    27. Renna, Francesco & Grafova, Irina B. & Thakur, Nidhi, 2008. "The effect of friends on adolescent body weight," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 377-387, December.
    28. Daniel L. Millimet & Ian K. McDonough, 2017. "Dynamic Panel Data Models With Irregular Spacing: With an Application to Early Childhood Development," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(4), pages 725-743, June.
    29. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    30. Gerdie Everaert, 2013. "Orthogonal to backward mean transformation for dynamic panel data models," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 16(2), pages 179-221, June.
    31. Xu Lin, 2010. "Identifying Peer Effects in Student Academic Achievement by Spatial Autoregressive Models with Group Unobservables," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(4), pages 825-860, October.
    32. Chih‐Sheng Hsieh & Lung Fei Lee, 2016. "A Social Interactions Model with Endogenous Friendship Formation and Selectivity," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(2), pages 301-319, March.
    33. Lung-fei Lee, 2003. "Best Spatial Two-Stage Least Squares Estimators for a Spatial Autoregressive Model with Autoregressive Disturbances," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 307-335.
    34. Anton Badev, 2014. "Discrete Games in Endogenous Networks: Theory and Policy," 2014 Meeting Papers 901, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    35. Lung-fei Lee & Xiaodong Liu & Xu Lin, 2010. "Specification and estimation of social interaction models with network structures," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 13(2), pages 145-176, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Boucher, Vincent & Fortin, Bernard, 2015. "Some Challenges in the Empirics of the Effects of Networks," IZA Discussion Papers 8896, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Rokhaya Dieye & Bernard Fortin, 2017. "Gender Peer Effects Heterogeneity in Obesity," Cahiers de recherche 1702, Centre de recherche sur les risques, les enjeux économiques, et les politiques publiques.
    3. Gibbons, Steve & Overman, Henry G. & Patacchini, Eleonora, 2015. "Spatial Methods," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 115-168, Elsevier.
    4. Yann Bramoullé & Habiba Djebbari & Bernard Fortin, 2020. "Peer Effects in Networks: A Survey," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 603-629, August.
    5. Chih‐Sheng Hsieh & Lung‐Fei Lee & Vincent Boucher, 2020. "Specification and estimation of network formation and network interaction models with the exponential probability distribution," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(4), pages 1349-1390, November.
    6. Ida Johnsson & Hyungsik Roger Moon, 2017. "Estimation of Peer Effects in Endogenous Social Networks: Control Function Approach," Papers 1709.10024, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2019.
    7. Patacchini, Eleonora & Hsieh, Chih-Sheng & Lin, Xu, 2019. "Social Interaction Methods," CEPR Discussion Papers 14141, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Kuersteiner, Guido M. & Prucha, Ingmar R. & Zeng, Ying, 2023. "Efficient peer effects estimators with group effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 2155-2194.
    9. Nie, Peng & Sousa-Poza, Alfonso & He, Xiaobo, 2015. "Peer effects on childhood and adolescent obesity in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 47-69.
    10. Patacchini, Eleonora & Rainone, Edoardo & Zenou, Yves, 2017. "Heterogeneous peer effects in education," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 190-227.
    11. Ryota Nakamura & Marc Suhrcke & Daniel John Zizzo, 2017. "A triple test for behavioral economics models and public health policy," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 83(4), pages 513-533, December.
    12. Kwok, Hon Ho, 2019. "Identification and estimation of linear social interaction models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 210(2), pages 434-458.
    13. Chih‐Sheng Hsieh & Xu Lin, 2021. "Social interactions and social preferences in social networks," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(2), pages 165-189, March.
    14. Dogan, Osman & Taspinar, Suleyman & Bera, Anil K., 2017. "Simple Tests for Social Interaction Models with Network Structures," MPRA Paper 82828, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Yingyao Hu & Zhongjian Lin, 2018. "Misclassification and the hidden silent rivalry," CeMMAP working papers CWP12/18, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    16. Hsieh, Chih-Sheng & Lin, Xu, 2017. "Gender and racial peer effects with endogenous network formation," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 135-147.
    17. Konstantinidi, Antri & Kourtellos, Andros & Sun, Yiguo, 2023. "Social threshold regression," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 2057-2081.
    18. Cotti, Chad & Tefft, Nathan, 2013. "Fast food prices, obesity, and the minimum wage," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 134-147.
    19. Wei Cheng, 2022. "Productivity spillovers in endogenous coauthor networks," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(6), pages 3159-3183, December.
    20. Zenou, Yves & Lindquist, Matthew & Sauermann, Jan, 2015. "Network Effects on Worker Productivity," CEPR Discussion Papers 10928, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Obesity; overweight; peer effects; social interactions; fast food; spatial models;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C31 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile Regressions; Social Interaction Models
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lvl:criacr:1507. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Manuel Paradis (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cediaca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.