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

58 Pages Posted: 5 Nov 2015 Last revised: 5 Aug 2018

See all articles by Gonzalo Maturana

Gonzalo Maturana

Emory University - Goizueta Business School

Jordan Nickerson

University of Washington - Department of Finance and Business Economics

Date Written: July 24, 2018

Abstract

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 a teacher's peers increases her 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 a teacher's choice of lender. Overall, our findings suggest that peer interactions greatly reduce a household's cost of acquiring and processing financial information.

Keywords: Household Finance, Peer Effects, Mortgages, Refinancing

JEL Classification: D71, G21, H31, R20

Suggested Citation

Maturana, Gonzalo and Nickerson, Jordan, Teachers Teaching Teachers: The Role of Workplace Peer Effects on Financial Decisions (July 24, 2018). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2686300 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2686300

Gonzalo Maturana

Emory University - Goizueta Business School ( email )

1300 Clifton Road
Atlanta, GA 30322-2722
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.gonzalomaturana.com/

Jordan Nickerson (Contact Author)

University of Washington - Department of Finance and Business Economics ( email )

Box 353200
Seattle, WA 98195
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
626
Abstract Views
5,574
Rank
78,496
PlumX Metrics