Friendship networks and political opinions
Friendship networks and political opinions
We examine how social interactions and friendships shape students' political opinions in a natural experiment at Sciences Po, a leading French university specializing in social and political sciences. The quasi-random assignment of students into short-term integration groups before their academic curriculum reduces political opinion gaps and fosters friendship formation. Using same-group membership as an instrumental variable for friendship, we find that friendship reduces opinion differences by 44 percent of the mean opinion gap. Our evidence supports a homophily-enforced mechanism: Friendships form among initially politically similar students, leading them to join political associations together, reinforcing their similarity.
2202-2241
Algan, Yann
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Dalvit, Nicolo
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Do, Quoc-Anh
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Le Chapelain, Alexis
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Zenou, Yves
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June 2026
Algan, Yann
cc4793c6-3eb4-4199-804d-e6e75cd1d93a
Dalvit, Nicolo
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Do, Quoc-Anh
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Le Chapelain, Alexis
badc4235-8352-4697-b0ea-0c0e5de4d46f
Zenou, Yves
38bf0c72-462b-4c08-8fd1-ce365b0296dc
Algan, Yann, Dalvit, Nicolo, Do, Quoc-Anh, Le Chapelain, Alexis and Zenou, Yves
(2026)
Friendship networks and political opinions.
American Economic Review, 116 (6), .
(doi:10.1257/aer.20231344).
Abstract
We examine how social interactions and friendships shape students' political opinions in a natural experiment at Sciences Po, a leading French university specializing in social and political sciences. The quasi-random assignment of students into short-term integration groups before their academic curriculum reduces political opinion gaps and fosters friendship formation. Using same-group membership as an instrumental variable for friendship, we find that friendship reduces opinion differences by 44 percent of the mean opinion gap. Our evidence supports a homophily-enforced mechanism: Friendships form among initially politically similar students, leading them to join political associations together, reinforcing their similarity.
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Network_at_Sciences_Po_FINAL_April 2026
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Accepted/In Press date: 1 April 2026
e-pub ahead of print date: 15 April 2026
Published date: June 2026
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 511725
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/511725
ISSN: 0002-8282
PURE UUID: d837efd8-bb4e-4906-9344-227d9ad663d5
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Date deposited: 29 May 2026 16:32
Last modified: 30 May 2026 01:54
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Contributors
Author:
Yann Algan
Author:
Nicolo Dalvit
Author:
Quoc-Anh Do
Author:
Alexis Le Chapelain
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