|
on Social Norms and Social Capital |
| By: | Dora L. Costa; Matthew E. Kahn |
| Abstract: | We find that veterans of the Union Army who faced greater wartime stress (as measured by higher battlefield mortality rates) experienced higher mortality rates at older ages, but that men who were from more cohesive companies were statistically significantly less likely to be affected by wartime stress. Our results hold for overall mortality, mortality from ischemic heart disease and stroke, and new diagnoses of arteriosclerosis. Our findings represent one of the first long-run health follow-ups of the interaction between stress and social networks in a human population in which both stress and social networks are arguably exogeneous. |
| JEL: | I12 Z13 |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14053&r=soc |
| By: | Speklé, Roland F.; Teije G. Smittenaar,Teije G. (Nyenrode Business Universiteit) |
| Abstract: | We examine the comparative effectiveness of three alternative licensing systems in professional football. The three systems’ main concern is with the promulgation of responsible financial behaviour among football clubs. To that effect, all three systems rely on entry control and ex ante budget approval rights. However, the three structures also differ, especially with regard to the way in which they seek to impose ex post budgetary discipline. We analyse these differences, using Transaction Cost Economics as our basic frame of reference. Both theoretically and empirically, we demonstrate that the effectiveness of the licensing arrangements depends on the credibility of the punitive measures available to the governing body. We also find evidence to suggest that social ties may partly substitute for formal deterrence and enforcement. |
| Keywords: | Licensing, Governance structure effectiveness, Credible threats, Transaction Cost Economics |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:nijrep:2008-05&r=soc |
| By: | Blunch, N. |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the religion-human capital link, examining a recent household survey for Ghana. Insights from the recent anthropological literature leads to a prediction of Islam being associated with lower human capital levels than Christianity, since Islam, perhaps surprisingly, may be clustered together with Traditional/Animist religion within the group of orally based religions for the case of Ghana. While previous studies typically have only considered the main religions, thereby not allowing for heterogeneous associations in the links at the sub-group level, and also have not allowed religious affiliation to be endogenously determined, these possibilities are explored here, as well. I find a strong association between individual religious affiliation and human capital as measured by years of schooling, with Christians as a group being more literate and having completed more years of schooling than Muslims and Animists / Traditionalists, thus confirming the predictions from the conceptual framework. At the same time, there is a great deal of heterogeneity in the strength of this relationship within different types of Christianity. The instrumental variables estimation strategy proves to be preferable to OLS, while at the same yielding higher associations in the religion-human capital relations ship. In turn, this indicates that previous studies, which have typically used OLS, may have systematically underestimated the strength of the religion-human capital link. Directions for future research are also presented. |
| Keywords: | Religion, human capital, literacy and numeracy, Ghana. |
| JEL: | J24 Z12 |
| Date: | 2007–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:0770&r=soc |
| By: | Marco Novarese (Universita del Piemonte Orientale); Christian Zimmermann (University of Connecticut) |
| Abstract: | We study how the democratization of the diffusion of research through the Internet could have helped non traditional fields of research. The specific case we approach is Heterodox Economics as its pre-prints are disseminated through NEP, the email alert service of RePEc. Comparing heterodox and mainstream papers, we find that heterodox ones are quite systematically more downloaded, and particularly so when considering downloads per subscriber. We conclude that the Internet definitely helps heterodox research, also because other researcher get exposed to it. But there is still room for more participation by heterodox researchers. |
| Keywords: | NEP, RePEc, heterodox economics, diffusion of research |
| JEL: | B50 A14 |
| Date: | 2008–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uct:uconnp:2008-17&r=soc |
| By: | Constanza Fosca; Matteo Marsili; Fernando Vega-Redondo |
| Abstract: | We study the long-run-emergency of behavioral patterns in dynamic complex networks. Individuals display two kinds of behavior: G("good") or B ("bad"). We assume that agents have an innate tendency towards G, but can also be led towards B though the influence of peer bad behavior. We model the implications of those peer effects as an epidemic process in the standard SIS (Susceptible-Infected-Susceptible) framework. The key novelty of our model is that, unlike in received epidemic literature, the network is taken to change over time within the same time scale as behavior. Specifically, we posit that links connecting two G agents last longer, reflecting the idea that B agents tend to be avoided. The main concern of the paper is to understand the extent to which such biased network turnover may play a significant role in supporting G behavior in a social system. And indeed we find that network coevolution has nontrivial and interesting effects on long-run behavior. This yields fresh insights on the role of (endogenous) peer pressure on the diffusion of (a)social behavior as well as on the traditional study of disease epidemics. |
| Keywords: | Coevolutionary networks, diffusion of behavior, social dilemma, epidemics |
| JEL: | C71 D83 D85 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eui:euiwps:eco2008/19&r=soc |
| By: | Maroš Servátka (University of Canterbury); Steven Tucker (University of Canterbury); Radovan Vadovic |
| Abstract: | While most of the previous literature interprets trust as an action, we adopt a view that trust is represented by a belief that the other party will return a fair share. The agent’s action is then a commitment device that signals this belief. In this paper we propose and test a conjecture that economic agents use trust strategically. That is, the agents have incentives to inflate the perceived level of trust (the signal) in order to induce a more favorable outcome for themselves. In the experiment we study the behavior of subjects in a modified investment game which is played sequentially and simultaneously. While the sequential treatment allows for strategic use of trust, in the simultaneous treatment the first mover’s action is not observed and hence does not signal her belief. In line with our prediction we find that first movers send significantly more in the sequential treatment than in simultaneous. Moreover, second movers reward trusting action, but only if it is maximal. We also find that signaling with trust enhances welfare. |
| Keywords: | Experimental Economics; Trust; Beliefs |
| JEL: | C70 C91 |
| Date: | 2008–05–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cbt:econwp:08/11&r=soc |
| By: | Katharine G. Abraham; Sara E. Helms; Stanley Presser |
| Abstract: | Estimates of volunteering in the United States vary greatly from survey to survey and do not show the decline over time common to other measures of social capital. We argue that these anomalies are caused by the social processes that determine survey participation, in particular the propensity of people who do volunteer work to respond to surveys at higher rates than those who do not do volunteer work. Thus surveys with lower responses rates will usually have higher proportions of volunteers, and the decline in response rates over time likely has led to increasing overrepresentation of volunteers. We analyze data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) -- the sample for which is drawn from Current Population Survey (CPS) respondents -- together with data from the CPS Volunteering Supplement to demonstrate the effects of survey nonresponse on estimates of volunteering activity and its correlates. CPS respondents who become ATUS respondents report much more volunteering in the CPS than those who become ATUS nonrespondents. This difference is replicated within demographic and other subgroups. Consequently, conventional statistical adjustments for nonresponse cannot correct the resulting bias. Although nonresponse leads to estimates of volunteer activity that are too high, it generally does not affect inferences about the characteristics associated with volunteer activity. We discuss the implications of these findings for the study of other phenomena. |
| JEL: | J01 |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14076&r=soc |
| By: | Freeman, Alan |
| Abstract: | bstract This unpublished paper was submitted to the May 22-23 conference on IPR at Birkbeck College, London. It analyses the distinct economic roles of culture, creation, and innovation in the Creative Industries by assessing the fitness for purpose of their statistical definitions. On this basis it proposes a method for studying the relation between creative labour and innovation. Lax usage has made the term ‘Creative Industries’ a synonym for three distinct things: creativity, culture and intellectual alienability. I use the term Cultural and Creative Sector (CCS). My aim is to distinguish Creative Labour, of which the sector is a specialist user, from Cultural Outputs, which the sector produces. These are found combined in the CCS in an advanced form, but they also exist separately outside it. In order to understand their wider economic impact – in particular, their relation to innovation and Intellectual Property – it is necessary to distinguish them. I begin from the empirical reality of the Creative Industries as currently defined which, I argue, establishes it as an ‘industrial sector’, in the economically meaningful sense that it is a specialised branch of the division of labour. Its definition, however, has yet to be aligned with this reality. This sector’s specialism is that it employs creative labour to produce cultural products. Its emergence is the outcome of two processes: a separation of mechanical from creative labour, which we inherit from the age of machines, and a revolution in service sector productivity, arising from the age of the internet. Creative labour is a general economic resource, employed both inside and outside the CCS. The CCS is the starting point of an adequate definition, because in it, creative labour is found in its most advanced and specialised form, and because in it, this kind of labour has applied to maximum effect the new service technologies which have emerged with the internet age. However, in order properly to assess its wider impact, creative labour has to be defined independent of the assumption that it only produces cultural products. This paper proposes such a definition. It outlines, on the basis of this definition, how the economic contribution of creative labour to service sector growth might be assessed. |
| Keywords: | cultural economics; creative industries; innovation; internet |
| JEL: | Z1 O3 J2 |
| Date: | 2008–05–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:9007&r=soc |
| By: | Blecker, Thorsten; Abdelkafi, Nizar; Raasch, Christina |
| Abstract: | This paper extends the principles of open source software development to a non-industry-specific level by introducing the Open Source Innovation (OSI) model. OSI exhibits main differences to other related models and concepts such as the private-collective model, commons-based peer production, R&D networks and is therefore an innovation model in its own right. In order for OSI projects to be successful, numerous factors need to be fulfilled. We make the distinction between four categories of factors: economic, technical, legal, and social. In each category, we differentiate between enabling and sustaining factors. The enabling factors must be met at the beginning of the project, whereas the sustaining factors must be satisfied as the project progresses. |
| Keywords: | OSI; open source innovation; R&D |
| JEL: | O32 L17 O3 O31 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:8964&r=soc |
| By: | Gonzalez, M.; Wen, W. |
| Abstract: | We propose a theory of the welfare state, in which social transfers are chosen by a governing group interacting with non-governing groups repeatedly. Social demands from the non-governing groups are credible because these groups have the ability to generate social conflict. In this context social insurance is supplied as an equilibrium response to income risks within a self-enforcing social contract. When we explore the implications of such a view of the social contract, we find four main determinants of the welfare state: the degree of aggregate income risk; the heterogeneity of group-specific income risks; the public administration’s ability to implement group-specific transfers; and the ability of the nongoverning groups to coordinate their social demands. We also analyze the link between public good provision and social insurance. |
| Date: | 2007–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:0772&r=soc |