Peer effects in the workplace
Subtitle: evidence from random groupings in professional golf tournaments
By: Jonathan Guryan, Kory Kroft, Matt Notowidigdo.
Contributors: Kroft, Kory.; Notowidigdo, Matt, 1981-; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series -- working paper 13422.; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research) -- working paper no. 13422.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 41
Subjects: Conformity in the workplace -- Mathematical models; Work environment -- Social aspects; Organizational behavior; Peer pressure
Description: This paper uses the random assignment of playing partners in professional golf tournaments to test for peer effects in the workplace. We find no evidence that the ability of playing partners affects the performance of professional golfers, contrary to recent evidence on peer effects in the workplace from laboratory experiments, grocery scanners, and soft-fruit pickers. In our preferred specification, we can rule out peer effects larger than 0.045 strokes for a one stroke increase in playing partners' ability, and the point estimates are small and actually negative. We offer several explanations for our contrasting findings: that workers seek to avoid responding to social incentives when financial incentives are strong; that there is heterogeneity in how susceptible individuals are to social effects and that those who are able to avoid them are more likely to advance to elite professional labor markets; and that workers learn with professional experience not to be affected by social forces. We view our results as complementary to the existing studies of peer effects in the workplace and as a first step towards explaining how these social effects vary across labor markets, across individuals and with changes in the form of incentives faced. In addition to the empirical results on peer effects in the workplace, we also point out that many typical peer effects regressions are biased because individuals cannot be their own peers, and suggest a simple correction.
Notes: "September 2007."

Includes bibliographical references (p. 29-31).

Also available in PDF from the NBER World Wide Web site (www.nber.org).