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Abstract Reciprocity in social networks is a measure of information exchange between two individuals, and indicates interaction patterns between pairs of users. A recent study finds that the reciprocity coefficient of a classical directed preferential attachment (PA) model does not match empirical evidence. Towards remedying this deficiency, we extend the classical three-scenario directed PA model by adding a parameter that controls the probability of creating a reciprocal edge. This proposed model also allows edge creation between two existing nodes, making it a realistic candidate for fitting to datasets. We provide and compare two estimation procedures for fitting the new reciprocity model and demonstrate the methods on simulated and real datasets. One estimation method requires careful analysis of the heavy tail properties of the model. The fitted models provide a good match with the empirical tail distributions of both in- and out-degrees but other mismatched diagnostics suggest that further generalization of the model is warranted.