Abstract
In many countries, students must decide at a young age on a course of study which will shape not only their experience in school, but in the labor market, and beyond. How much value do these students put on sharing a course of study with their friends? We conduct a randomized experiment among 9th grade students in Portugal, who will decide within a few months which course to pursue in secondary school. We ask students who their best friend in their class is, then elicit students' preferred (and second-preferred) course, as well as their beliefs about their best friend's course. We also elicit their beliefs over the returns to these courses. We then present a series of hypothetical scenarios, in which we vary the potential returns to different courses and elicit course preferences in each scenario. We randomly vary which students see these hypothetical scenarios framed as an opportunity to be in a course with their best friend. By measuring the differences in the point at which students switch courses, we can recover a monetary value students place on being in their friend's course in secondary school.