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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
| By: | Judith Hellerstein; Melissa McInerney; David Neumark |
| Abstract: | We specify and implement a test for the importance of network effects in determining the establishments at which people work, using recently-constructed matched employer-employee data at the establishment level. We explicitly measure the importance of network effects for groups broken out by race, ethnicity, and various measures of skill, for networks generated by residential proximity. The evidence indicates that labor market networks play an important role in hiring, more so for minorities and the less-skilled, especially among Hispanics, and that labor market networks appear to be race-based. |
| Date: | 2009–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:09-01&r=soc |
| By: | Delia Furtado; Nikolaos Theodoropoulos |
| Abstract: | Social networks are commonly understood to play a large role in the labor market success of immigrants. Using 2000 U.S. Census data, this paper examines whether access to native networks, as measured by marriage to a native, increases the probability of immigrant employment. We start by confirming in both least squares and instrumental variables frameworks that marriage to a native indeed increases immigrant employment rates. Next, we show that the returns to marrying a native are not likely to arise solely from citizenship rights acquired through marriage or characteristics of native spouses. We then present several pieces of evidence suggesting that networks obtained through marriage play an important part in explaining the relationship between marriage decisions and employment. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Marriage, Employment, Networks |
| Date: | 2009–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucy:cypeua:3-2009&r=soc |
| By: | Margherita Comola; Marcel Fafchamps |
| Abstract: | The literature has shown that network architecture depends crucially on whether links are formed unilaterally or bilaterally, that is, on whether the consent of both nodes is required for a link to be formed. We propose a test of whether network data is best seen as an actual link or willingness to link and, in the latter case, whether this link is generated by an unilateral or bilateral link formation process. We illustrate this test using survey answers to a risk-sharing question in Tanzania. We find that the bilateral link formation model fits the data better than the unilateral model, but the data are best interpreted as willingness to link rather than an actual link. We then expand the model to include self-censoring and find that models with self-censoring fit the data best. |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pse:psecon:2009-30&r=soc |
| By: | Alessandro Innocenti; Antonio Nicita |
| Abstract: | In this paper we compare - in the laboratory - stoppage and virtual strike. Our experiment confirms that higher wages offered by an employer lead to considerably more costly effort provision. The number of strikes, the level of efforts and average total payoffs are higher under virtual strike than under standard strike. However, when standard strike is associated with reciprocal externalities, it induces higher effort levels, higher payoffs and an extremely reduced number of strikes than virtual strike. It is unclear whether this behavior re?ects reciprocity or other forms of social preferences. However our results might explain why standard strikes rather than virtual ones are generally adopted by workers. |
| Keywords: | virtual strike, cooperation, reciprocity, fairness, experiments |
| JEL: | C91 D74 D78 J52 K31 M55 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:labsit:026&r=soc |
| By: | Fischer, Justina AV |
| Abstract: | The question whether a socially mobile society is conducive to subjective well-being (SWB) has rarely been investigated. This paper fills this gap by analyzing the SWB effects of intergenerational earnings mobility and equality in educational attainment at the societal level. Using socio-demographic information on 44’000 individuals in 30 OECD countries obtained from the World Values Survey 1997-2001, this study shows that living in a socially mobile society is conducive to individual life satisfaction. Differentiating between perceived and actual social mobility, we find that both exert rather independent effects, particularly in their interplay with income inequality. We identify a positive interaction of perceived social mobility that mitigates the overall SWB lowering effect of income inequality. In contrast to expectations, a high degree of actual social mobility yields an overall impact of income inequality that is SWB lowering, while for low social mobility the effect of inequality is positive. Thus, people bear income inequality more easily when they perceive their society as mobile, but also - surprisingly - when their society is actually rather immobile. These interactions hold stronger for pre-transfer than post-transfer income inequality suggesting that government redistribution disentangles the effect of income inequality from that of social mobility. Robustness using a world sample is tested. |
| Keywords: | Social mobility; Happiness; Well-Being; Life satisfaction; Inequality; Voting; Equal opportunities; Fairness; Justice |
| JEL: | D31 D63 J62 I31 A14 |
| Date: | 2009–09–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:17070&r=soc |