Should I stay or should I go? Sibling effects in household formation

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• 作者：Ainhoa Aparicio-Fenoll ; Veruska Oppedisano
• 关键词：Peer effects ; Siblings ; Household formation ; Living arrangements
• 刊名：Review of Economics of the Household
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：December 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：14
• 期：4
• 页码：1007-1027
• 全文大小：499 KB
• 刊物类别：Business and Economics
• 刊物主题：Economics
  Microeconomics
  Labor Economics
  Population Economics
  Social Sciences
  
• 出版者：Springer Netherlands
• ISSN：1573-7152
• 卷排序：14

文摘

This paper analyzes peer effects among siblings in the decision to leave parental home. Estimating peer effects is challenging because of problems of reflection, endogenous group formation, and correlated unobservables. We overcome these issues using the exogenous variation in siblings’ household formation implied by the eligibility rules for a Spanish rental subsidy. Our results show that sibling effects are negative and that these effects can be explained by the presence of old or ill parents. Sibling effects turn positive for close-in-age siblings, when imitation is more likely to prevail. Our findings indicate that policy makers who aim at fostering household formation should target the household rather than the individual and combine policies for young adults with policies for the elderly.