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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
| By: | Sumon Majumdar (Queen's University); Sharun Mukand (Tufts University) |
| Abstract: | Individual leaders have been central to the transformation of organizations, political institutions and many instances of social and economic reform. In this paper we take a first step towards analyzing the role of leadership to ask: when and how does a leader engineer change? We show that while underlying structural conditions and institutions are important, there is an independent first-order role for individual agency in bringing about change and thus transforming the institutions. We emphasize the key nature of the symbiotic relationship between followers decisions' to willingly entrust their faith in the leader and the leader's initiative at leading them. This two-way interaction can endogenously give rise to threshold effects; slight differences in the leader's ability or the underlying structural conditions can dramatically improve the prospects for successful change. Given the centrality of this leader-follower relationship, we further explore conditions under which an individual may deliberately prefer to follow an ambitious leader with divergent interests rather than a benevolent one with congruent preferences. Thus by virtue of having followers, both `good' and `bad' leaders may be effective at bringing about change. |
| Keywords: | Leadership, Followers, Change |
| JEL: | P41 D72 D78 D83 O43 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qed:wpaper:1128&r=soc |
| By: | Stanton, Angela A. |
| Abstract: | In economic experiments decisions often differ from game-theoretic predictions. Why are people generous in one-shot ultimatum games with strangers? Is there a benefit to generosity toward strangers? Research on the neural substrates of decisions suggests that some choices are hormone-dependent. By artificially stimulating subjects with neuroactive hormones, we can identify which hormones and brain regions participate in decisionmaking, to what degree and in what direction. Can a hormone make a person generous while another stingy? In this paper, two laboratory experiments are described using the hormones oxytocin (OT) and arginine vasopressin (AVP). Concentrations of these hormones in the brain continuously change in response to external stimuli. OT enhances trust (Michael Kosfeld et al. 2005b), reduce fear from strangers (C. Sue Carter 1998), and has anti-anxiety effects (Kerstin UvnÃÂäs-Moberg, Maria Peterson 2005). AVP enhances attachment and bonding with kin in monogamous male mammals (Jennifer N. Ferguson et al. 2002) and increases reactive aggression (C. Sue Carter 2007). Dysfunctions of OT and/or AVP reception have been associated with autism (Miranda M. Lim et al. 2005). In Chapter One I review past experiments with the ultimatum (UG) and dictator (DG) games and visit some of the major results in the literature. In Chapter Two I present the results of my laboratory experiment where I examine why people are generous in one-shot economic games with strangers. I hypothesize that oxytocin would enhance generosity in the UG. Players in the OT group were much more generous than those in the placeboâÃÂÃÂOT offers in the UG were 80% higher than offers on placebo. Enhanced generosity was not due to altruism as there was no effect on DG offers. This implies that other-regarding preferences are at play in the amount of money sent but only in a reciprocal context. The third chapter presents an experiment on punishment. I hypothesized that AVP would increase rejections and stinginess in the UG and TG. Results show that AVP affects rejections and stinginess in small groups but not in large ones. Chapter Four contains the summary of future research suggestions. |
| Keywords: | Oxytocin; Vasopressin; ultimatum game; dictator game; trust game; generosity; altruism |
| JEL: | Y40 D01 Z00 |
| Date: | 2007–05–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:4030&r=soc |
| By: | Levy, Amnon (University of Wollongong) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores a possible effect of social capital on the relationship between utility and wealth. Material status sensitivity is considered in constructing the individual social-capital index. The incorporation of the index into the individualâÃÂÃÂs utility function leads to the proposition that if utility is directly increased by wealth but indirectly reduced by diminishing intensity and quality of sincere social interaction as the material-status-gape widens, there exists an inverted U-shaped relationship between utility and wealth. People located in the lower and upper tails of the wealth distribution are less content and hence more vulnerable to depression. |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uow:depec1:wp06-27&r=soc |
| By: | Mengel, Friederike |
| Abstract: | We present and analyze a local interaction model where agents play a bilateral prisoner's dilemma game with their neighbors. Agents learn about behavior through payoff-biased imitation of their interaction neighbors (and possibly some agents beyond this set). We find that the [Eshel, I., L. Samuelson and A. Shaked, 1998, Altruists, Egoists and Hooligans in a Local Interaction Model, Am. Econ. Rev 88] result that polymorphic states are stochastically stable in such a setting is not robust. In particular whenever agents use information also of some agents beyond their interaction neighbors the unique stable outcome is one where everyone chooses defection. Introducing a sufficiently strong conformist bias into the imitation process we find that full cooperation always emerges. Conformism is thus identified as a new mechanism that can stabilize cooperation. |
| Keywords: | Cooperation; Imitation; Local Interaction; Conformism. |
| JEL: | C72 C73 |
| Date: | 2007–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:4051&r=soc |
| By: | Eva Chang |
| Date: | 2007–06–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwneu:neurusp111&r=soc |
| By: | Clercq, D. de; Hessels, S.J.A.; Stel, A.J. van (Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), RSM Erasmus University) |
| Abstract: | We draw on knowledge spillover literature to suggest that a country?s level of foreign direct investment (FDI) and international trade may influence the export orientation of its entrepreneurs, which in turn may relate to the country?s total level of entrepreneurial activity. Macro-level data from 34 countries during 2002?2005 indicate that a country?s outward FDI, export, and import positively affect entrepreneurs? export orientation, but these effects differ in how fast they manifest themselves. Furthermore, the extent to which a country?s entrepreneurs engage in export-oriented activities affects the subsequent emergence of new businesses. These findings have important implications for research and practice. |
| Keywords: | Knowledge spillovers;Export orientation;Country-level entrepreneurship; |
| Date: | 2007–06–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:eureri:300011416&r=soc |
| By: | Jeffrey S. DeSimone |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the impact of fraternity and sorority membership on a wide array of drinking outcomes among respondents to four Harvard College Alcohol Study surveys from 1993-2001. Identification is achieved by including proxies for specific types of unobserved heterogeneity expected to influence the relationship. These include high school and parental drinking behaviors to account for time-invariant omitted factors, and assessed importance of drinking-related activities and reasons for drinking to control for changes in preferences since starting college. Self-selection is quantitatively important. But even controlling for variables plausibly affected by fraternity membership, such as current alcohol use categorization (from abstainer to heavy drinker) and time spent socializing, fraternity membership has a large impact on drinking intensity, frequency and recency, as well as various negative drinking consequences that potentially carry negative externalities. |
| JEL: | I1 I2 |
| Date: | 2007–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13262&r=soc |
| By: | Jill R. Horwitz; Austin Nichols |
| Abstract: | Conflicting theories of the nonprofit firm have existed for several decades yet empirical research has not resolved these debates, partly because the theories are not easily testable but also because empirical research generally considers organizations in isolation rather than in markets. Here we examine three types of hospitals -- nonprofit, for-profit, and government -- and their spillover effects. We look at the effect of for-profit ownership share within markets in two ways, on the provision of medical services and on operating margins at the three types of hospitals. We find that nonprofit hospitals' medical service provision systematically varies by market mix. We find no significant effect of for-profit market share on the operating margins of nonprofit hospitals. These results fit best with theories in which hospitals maximize their own output. |
| JEL: | H1 I1 L1 L13 L22 L3 |
| Date: | 2007–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13246&r=soc |
| By: | A. Arrighetti; F. TraÃÂù |
| Keywords: | Firm Size Structure, Firm Growth and Organisation, Medium-Sized Firms, Division of Labour, Markets vs. Hierarchies, Organisational Change |
| JEL: | D21 D23 L11 L22 L23 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:par:dipeco:2007-ep04&r=soc |