TY - JOUR AU - Glaeser,Edward L. AU - Sacerdote,Bruce I. AU - Scheinkman,Jose A. TI - The Social Multiplier JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 9153 PY - 2002 Y2 - September 2002 DO - 10.3386/w9153 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9153 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9153.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Edward L. Glaeser Department of Economics 315A Littauer Center Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138 Tel: 617/495-0575 Fax: 617/495-7730 E-Mail: eglaeser@harvard.edu Bruce Sacerdote 6106 Rockefeller Hall Department of Economics Dartmouth College Hanover, NH 03755-3514 Tel: 603/646-2121 Fax: 603/646-2122 E-Mail: Bruce.I.Sacerdote@dartmouth.edu José A. Scheinkman Department of Economics Columbia University New York, NY 10027 E-Mail: js3317@columbia.edu AB - In many cases, aggregate data is used to make inferences about individual level behavior. If there are social interactions in which one person's actions influence his neighbor's incentives or information, then these inferences are inappropriate. The presence of positive social interactions, or strategic complementarities, implies the existence of a social multiplier where aggregate relationships will overstate individual elasticities. We present a brief model and then estimate the size of the social multiplier in three areas: the impact of education on wages, the impact of demographics on crime and group membership among Dartmouth roommates. In all three areas there appears to be a significant social multiplier. ER -