Ugo Bolletta
VC Salle A
Centre de la Vieille Charité
2 rue de la Charité
13002 Marseille
Ugo Bolletta : ugo.bolletta2[at]unibo.it
Mathieu Faure : mathieu.faure[at]univ-amu.fr
In this paper I develop a model of network formation that exhibits peer effects. Students form friendships, and their academic outcomes will depend on the acquaintances they created within the class. I allow for the presence of role models, to identify the students with more popular characteristics. Therefore I model the problem of a school, who gets a number of freshmen and must decide to assign students to classrooms. The school’s objective is to maximize student’s outcomes. Numerical results, consistently with experimental evidence from the literature, show that if there are positive role models the school must create classrooms uniform enough, eventually with some weak ties, isolating on the contrary negative role models.