ECIN Replication Package for "Why do Peers Influence College Major Selection?"

Name: ECIN Replication Package for "Why do Peers Influence College Major Selection?"
Published: 2025-03-14
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Michael Insler, U.S. Naval Academy; Ahmed Rahman, Lehigh University; Katherine Smith, U.S. Naval Academy

Version: View help for Version V1

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data			03/14/2025 10:36:AM
Figs1-4_Tables1-11_TablesA1-A5.do	text/plain	63.1 KB	03/14/2025 06:36:AM
README.docx	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document	31 KB	03/14/2025 06:36:AM
README.pdf	application/pdf	71.5 KB	03/14/2025 06:36:AM
Table12.do	text/plain	9.7 KB	03/14/2025 06:36:AM
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setup_data.do	text/plain	69.3 KB	03/14/2025 06:36:AM

Project Citation:

Insler, Michael, Rahman, Ahmed, and Smith, Katherine. ECIN Replication Package for “Why do Peers Influence College Major Selection?” Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2025-03-14. https://doi.org/10.3886/E222884V1

Project Description

Summary: This archive contains code and synthetic data to generate results for the linked manuscript. Manuscript abstract is below:

Why do peers influence people’s choices? Is it for information (social learning) or for socializing (social utility)? Exploiting unique data and natural experiments from the United States Naval Academy (USNA), we analyze data on major selections of USNA students. We find peers influence students into selecting different academic paths than they would have chosen independently. Through random reassignments, “shot-guns”, of students into new peer groups along with random assignments into courses, we explore the reasons why herding occurs. Evidence suggests that social learning, as opposed to social utility, is an important driver for herding behavior.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: Major Selection; Peer Effects; Higher Education; Herding; Social Utility

JEL Classification:
      D85 Network Formation and Analysis: Theory
      I21 Analysis of Education
      I23 Higher Education; Research Institutions
      J24 Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

Manuscript Number: ECIN-Sep-2023-0412

Geographic Coverage: Annapolis, MD

Time Period(s): 1996 – 2018

Data Type(s): administrative records data; program source code

Collection Notes: Original datasets are proprietary. Archive includes synthetic versions of the original data that can be used to operationalize the code that generates manuscript results. Instructions for access to original data are included within this archive.

Methodology

Data Source: U.S. Naval Academy
Office of Institutional Research

Related Publications

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Published Versions

V1 [2025-03-14]

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