Conformism and Social Connections: An Empirical Analysis of Self-Commitment to Food Purchase

Recent years registered a renewed interest in social interactions. However, due to some well-known identification problems, empirical estimation of peer effects remains quite problematic. To overcome problems of this kind, a database providing detailed information on the sequential structure of choices is analyzed. Observations refer to the deposit of money in a personal account devoted to the purchase of food at campus refectories. A clear tendency to conform to directly observed deposits is registered in the data. Furthermore, higher conformism is observed among mutually acquainted individuals.