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Fraternity Membership and Drinking Behavior

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  • Jeffrey S. DeSimone

Abstract

This paper estimates the impact of fraternity and sorority membership on a wide array of drinking outcomes among respondents to four Harvard College Alcohol Study surveys from 1993-2001. Identification is achieved by including proxies for specific types of unobserved heterogeneity expected to influence the relationship. These include high school and parental drinking behaviors to account for time-invariant omitted factors, and assessed importance of drinking-related activities and reasons for drinking to control for changes in preferences since starting college. Self-selection is quantitatively important. But even controlling for variables plausibly affected by fraternity membership, such as current alcohol use categorization (from abstainer to heavy drinker) and time spent socializing, fraternity membership has a large impact on drinking intensity, frequency and recency, as well as various negative drinking consequences that potentially carry negative externalities.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeffrey S. DeSimone, 2007. "Fraternity Membership and Drinking Behavior," NBER Working Papers 13262, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13262
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Marmaros, David & Sacerdote, Bruce, 2002. "Peer and social networks in job search," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(4-5), pages 870-879, May.
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    5. DeSimone, Jeff, 2007. "Fraternity membership and binge drinking," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 950-967, September.
    6. Bruce Sacerdote, 2001. "Peer Effects with Random Assignment: Results for Dartmouth Roommates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 681-704.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Paolo Buonanno & Paolo Vanin, 2013. "Bowling alone, drinking together," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 1635-1672, June.
    2. L. Corazzini & A. Filippin & P. Vanin, 2014. "Economic Behavior under Alcohol Influence: An Experiment on Time, Risk, and Social Preferences," Working Papers wp944, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    3. Jack Mara & Lewis Davis & Stephen Schmidt, 2018. "Social Animal House: The Economic And Academic Consequences Of Fraternity Membership," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(2), pages 263-276, April.
    4. Andersland, Leroy, 2017. "Peer Effects from a School Choice Reform," Working Papers in Economics 9/17, University of Bergen, Department of Economics.
    5. Ha, Joung Yeob & Smith, Austin C., 2019. "Legal access to alcohol and academic performance: Who is affected?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 19-22.
    6. Vinish Shrestha, 2018. "Do young adults substitute cigarettes for alcohol? Learning from the master settlement agreement," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 297-321, June.
    7. Angela Granger-Serrano & Alexander Villarraga-Orjuela, 2021. "Peer Effects on First-Year University Students’ Results: The Role of Classmates’ Academic Performance and Socioeconomic Status," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(23), pages 1-26, December.
    8. Rosa Duarte & Jose Julián Escario & José Alberto Molina, 2011. "Peer Effects, Unobserved Factors And Risk Behaviours In Adolescence," Revista de Economia Aplicada, Universidad de Zaragoza, Departamento de Estructura Economica y Economia Publica, vol. 19(1), pages 125-151, Spring.
    9. Duncan McVicar & Arnold Polanski, 2010. "Estimating Peer Influences in Teenage Substance Use when Friendship Links are Unobserved," Economics Working Papers 10-04, Queen's Management School, Queen's University Belfast.
    10. Routon, P. Wesley & Walker, Jay K., 2014. "The impact of Greek organization membership on collegiate outcomes: Evidence from a National Survey," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 63-70.
    11. Jeffrey S. DeSimone, 2010. "Fraternity Membership & Frequent Drinking," NBER Working Papers 16291, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Giuseppe Di Vita & Gianluca Foresta & Carla Zarb?, 2013. "Il consumo giovanile di bevande alcoliche: un?indagine su alcuni modelli comportamentali," Economia agro-alimentare, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 15(1), pages 203-232.
    13. Luca Corazzini & Antonio Filippin & Paolo Vanin, 2015. "Economic Behavior under the Influence of Alcohol: An Experiment on Time Preferences, Risk-Taking, and Altruism," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(4), pages 1-25, April.

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    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education

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