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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
| By: | Growiec, Katarzyna; Growiec, Jakub |
| Abstract: | This paper provides evidence that bridging and bonding social capital as well as social trust may interdependently affect individuals' earnings and subjective well-being. Based on cross-sectional World Values Survey 2000 data on individuals from Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs), we show that majority of citizens of these countries seem to fall in a "low trust trap" where deficits of bridging social capital and trust reinforce each other in lowering individuals' incomes and well-being. Apart from gradual modernization and economic growth, also increases in labor market participation can be perceived as a potential way out of this "trap", because employed people in CEECs tend to have statistically significantly more bridging social capital and more trust. We discuss our empirical results by providing an assessment of their robustness, and pointing out the high risk of endogeneity and omitted variables bias, often overlooked in earlier studies. |
| Keywords: | bridging social capital; bonding social capital; social trust; CEE countries; earnings; subjective well-being |
| JEL: | D10 J20 |
| Date: | 2010–06–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:23350&r=soc |
| By: | Smith, John |
| Abstract: | We interpret the social identity literature and examine its economic implications. We model a population of agents from two exogenous and well defined social groups. Agents are randomly matched to play a reduced form bargaining game. We show that this struggle for resources drives a conflict through the rational destruction of surplus. We assume that the population contains both unbiased and biased players. Biased players aggressively discriminate against members of the other social group. The existence and specification of the biased player is motivated by the social identity literature. For unbiased players, group membership has no payoff relevant consequences. We show that the unbiased players can contribute to the conflict by aggressively discriminating and that this behavior is consistent with existing empirical evidence. |
| Keywords: | social identity theory; social fragmentation |
| JEL: | L14 D74 C72 |
| Date: | 2010–06–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:23336&r=soc |
| By: | Haynes, Paul |
| Abstract: | The concept of social capital emerged as an influential research theme in a number of disciplines in the past twenty years, as measured by the exponential growth in social capital literature throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s. While some of the assumptions of social capital theory have been challenged individually, its limitations as a unified concept have not been adequately tackled within the academic literature. This paper is an attempt to address this challenge, identifying eight key questions that the concept needs to tackle. The paper concludes that a stronger concept of social capital will emerge only by addressing these limitations explicitly and as a cluster rather than individually. |
| Date: | 2009–06–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ing:wpaper:200902&r=soc |
| By: | Christophe J. Godlewski (LaRGE Research Center, Université de Strasbourg); Bulat Sanditov (University of Maastricht); Thierry Burger-Helmchen (BETA Research Center, Université de Strasbourg) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the network structure of syndicated lending markets and evaluate the impact of lenders’ network centrality, considered as measures of their experience and reputation, on borrowing costs. We show that the market for syndicated loans is a “small world” characterized by large local density and short social distances between lenders. Such a network structure allows for better information and resources flows between banks thus enhancing their social capital. We then show that lenders’ experience and reputation play a significant role in reducing loan spreads and thus increasing borrower’s wealth. |
| Keywords: | Agency costs, bank syndicate, experience, loan syndication, reputation, small world, social network analysis. |
| JEL: | G21 G24 L14 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lar:wpaper:2010-07&r=soc |
| By: | Harmsen - van Hout, Marjolein J.W. (E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN)); Dellaert, Benedict G.C. (Department of Business Economics / Marketing Section, Erasmus School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam); Herings, P. Jean-Jacques (Department of Economics, School of Business and Economics, Maastricht University) |
| Abstract: | Network formation constitutes an important part of many social and economic processes, but relatively little is known about how individuals make their linking decisions in networks. This article provides an experimental investigation of behavioral effects in individual decisions of network formation. Our findings demonstrate that the inherent complexity of the network setting makes individuals’ choices systematically less payoff-guided and also strongly reduces their social orientation. Furthermore, we show that specific network complexity features aggravate the former effect. These behavioral effects have important implications for researchers and managers working in areas that involve network formation. |
| Keywords: | network formation; individual decision making; behavioral effects; network complexity; payoff orientation; social preferences; choice experiments; mixed logit |
| JEL: | A14 C91 D85 |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:fcnwpa:2010_005&r=soc |
| By: | Dunia López-Pintado (Department of Economics, Universidad Pablo de Olavide and CORE, Université Catholique de Louvain) |
| Abstract: | Some behaviors, ideas or technologies spread and become persistent in society, whereas others vanish. This paper analyzes the role of social influence in determining such distinct collective outcomes. Agents are assumed to acquire information from others through a certain sampling process that generates an influence network and use simple rules to decide whether to adopt or not depending on the observed sample. The diffusion threshold (i.e., the spreading rate above which the behavior becomes persistent in the population) and the endemic state (i.e., the fraction of adopters in the stationary state of the dynamics) are characterized as a function of the primitives of the model. The results highlight the importance of the correlation between visibility and connectivity (or degree) for diffusion purposes. |
| Keywords: | social influence, networks, diffusion threshold, endemic state. |
| JEL: | C73 L14 O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2010–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pab:wpaper:10.06&r=soc |