Teachers Teaching Teachers: The Role of Workplace Peer Effects in Financial Decisions

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Maturana, Gonzalo; Nickerson, Jordan
• 署名单位: Emory University; Boston College
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF FINANCIAL STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0893-9454
• DOI: 10.1093/rfs/hhy136
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 3920
• 关键词: Random assignment; networks

摘要

This paper studies the role of workplace peers in the transmission of information pertinent to an important household financial decision: the mortgage refinancing choice. Exploiting commonalities in teaching schedules of school teachers in Texas to identify peer groups, we find that refinancing activity among teachers' peers increases their likelihood of refinancing by 20.7%. The effect of peers increases with the potential savings realized upon refinancing and is stronger among younger teachers. Peers also affect teachers' choice of lender. Overall, our findings suggest that peer interactions greatly reduce a household's cost of acquiring and processing financial information.