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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
| By: | Astrid Krenz |
| Abstract: | The German educational system finds itself being criticized by the OECD in its Programme for International Student Assessment. Family background would heavily influence children’s academic achievements. A child stemming from a high class family has a 3.1 times higher chance to go to secondary school than a child from a working class family, controlling for ability. The chance for taking up university studies is even 7.4 times higher for children from high class families. In search of an explanation for this misery Pierre Bourdieu’s and James Coleman’s theories about cultural and social capital prove to be valuable. Based on their work this study will investigate returns to education and its interdependence with family background in Germany. Bourdieu basically explains that family background leads to acquire specific levels of manners, attitudes, self assurance etc. which in turn might influence job status, income e.g. A huge body of literature measuring returns to education all over the world already exists, however, studies for Germany, and in particular studies that focuss on the relation between income, education and social background, are rare. This study appears to be the first one following an interdisciplinary approach, incorporating measures of cultural and social capital along with family background and further variables into a common Mincer wage equation. Taking data from the German SOEP for the years 2001 and 2005 indices measuring cultural and social capital are constructed applying principal component analysis. Education, ability, motivation, cultural and social capital are endogenized and adequate regression techniques are applied. It can be shown that social background determines an individual’s amount of education which in turn will influence income. An individual’s amount of education does significantly depend on parents’ education, the father being a low-skilled laborer, the amount of cultural and social capital, ability and motivation. Males do get more education than women. Educational policy in Germany should concentrate on enhancing access to education for children from low class families on the one hand, on the other hand the German society should be sensitized to special needs of individuals stemming from low class families as well as to problems that these humans do face. |
| Keywords: | Returns to Education, Cultural Capital, Social Capital, Inequality, Index |
| JEL: | I21 J24 J31 Z13 |
| Date: | 2010–07–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:got:cegedp:108&r=soc |
| By: | Berggren, Niclas (The Ratio Institute); Elinder, Mikael (Department of Economics, Uppsala University) |
| Abstract: | We investigate to what extent tolerance, as measured by attitudes toward different types of neighbors, affects economic growth. Data from the World Values Survey enable us to investigate tolerance–growth relationships for 54 countries. We provide estimates based on cross-sectional as well as panel-data regressions. In addition we test for robustness with respect to model specification and sample composition. Unlike previous studies, by Richard Florida and others, we find that tolerance toward homosexuals is negatively related to growth. For tolerance toward people of a different race, we do not find robust results, but the sign of the estimated coefficients is positive, suggesting that inclusion of people irrespective of race makes good use of productive capacity. We propose mechanisms to explain these divergent findings, which clarify why different kinds of tolerance may be of different economic importance. |
| Keywords: | Tolerance; Growth; Diversity; Human Capital; Creativity; Innovation |
| JEL: | O40 Z13 |
| Date: | 2010–08–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ratioi:0155&r=soc |
| By: | Peter Martinsson (University of Gothenburg); Kristian Ove R. Myrseth (ESMT European School of Management and Technology); Conny Wollbrant (University of Gothenburg) |
| Abstract: | When facing the opportunity to allocate resources between oneself and others, individuals may experience a self-control conflict between urges to act selfishly and preferences to act pro-socially. We explore the domain of conditional cooperation, and we test the hypothesis that increased expectations about others’ average contribution increases own contributions to public goods more when self-control is high than when it is low. We pair a subtle framing technique with a public goods experiment. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find that conditionally cooperative behavior is stronger (i.e., less imperfect) when expectations of high contributions are accompanied by high levels of self-control. |
| Keywords: | self-control, pro-social behavior, public good experiment, conditional cooperation |
| JEL: | D01 D64 D70 |
| Date: | 2010–07–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esm:wpaper:esmt-10-004&r=soc |
| By: | Margherita Comola; Marcel Fafchamps |
| Abstract: | Using village date from Tanzania, we test whether gifts and loans between households are voluntary while correcting for mis-reporting by the giving and receiving households. Tow maintained assumptions underlie our analysis: answers to a question on who people would turn to for help are good proxies for willingness to link: and, conditional on regressors, the probability of reporting a gift or loan is independent between giving and receiving households. Building on these assumptions, we develop a new estimation methodology and gift giving are voluntary, then both households should, want to rely on each other for help. We find only weak evidence to support bilateral formation. We do, however, find reasonably strong evidence to support unilateral link formation. Results suggest that if a household wishes to enter in a reciprocal relationship with someone who is sufficiently close socially and geographically, it can do so unilaterally. |
| Keywords: | Risk sharing, reporting bias, social networks |
| JEL: | C13 C51 D85 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2010-20&r=soc |
| By: | Danila Serra; Pieter Serneels; Abigail Barr |
| Abstract: | Economists have traditionally assumed that individual behavior is motivated exclusively by extrinsic incentives. Social psychologists, in contrast, stress that intrinsic motivations are also important. In recent work, economic theorists have started to build psychological factors, like intrinsic motivations, into their models. Besley and Ghatak (2005) propose that individuals are differently motivated in that they have different “missions,” and their self-selection into sectors or organizations with matching missions enhances organizational efficiency. We test Besley and Ghatak’s model using data from a unique cohort study. We generate two proxies for intrinsic motivations: a survey-based measure of the health professionals philanthropic motivations and an experimental measure of their pro-social motivations. We find that both proxies predict health professionals’ decision to work in the non-profit sector. We also find that philanthropic health workers employed in the non-profit sector earn lower wages than their colleagues. |
| JEL: | C93 I11 J24 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2010-04&r=soc |
| By: | Abigail Barr; Marleen Dekker; Marcel Fafchamps |
| Abstract: | Previous analyses of the formation and comparison of community based organizations (CBOs) have used cross section data. So, causal inference has been compromised. We obviate this problem by using data from a quai-experiment in which villages were formed by government officials selecting and clustering households. Our findings are as follow: CBO co-memberships are more likely between geographically proximate households and less likely between early and late settlers, members of female headed households are not excluded, in poorer villages CBO co-membership networks are denser and, while wealthier households may have been instrumental in setting up CBOs, poorer households engage shortly afterwards. |
| Keywords: | Community Based Organizations; quasi-experiment; social networks |
| JEL: | D71 D31 O12 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2010-21&r=soc |
| By: | Ooi Giok Ling; Gillian Koh; Tan Ern Ser |
| Abstract: | The executive summary reports on major findings from a survey conducted among a random sample of 1,054 Singaporeans and Permanent Residents aged 18 to 65. Focus is on views of public policies in three areas, namely, political participation, social capital and trust and provision of public goods and services. [Working Paper No.5] |
| Keywords: | survey,Singaporeans, Permanent Residents, social capital, public goods, services |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:2716&r=soc |
| By: | Friederike Mengel (Universidad de Alicante); Gergely Horváth (Dpto. Fundamentos del Análisis Económico); Jaromir Kovarik (Universidad de Alicante) |
| Abstract: | We study a dynamic process where agents in a network interact in a Prisoner’s Dilemma. The network not only mediates interactions, but also information: agents learn from their own experience and that of their neighbors in the network about the past behavior of others. Each agent can only memorize the last h periods. Evolution selects among three preference types: altruists, defectors and conditional cooperators. We show - relying on simulation techniques - that the probability of reaching a cooperative state does not relate monotonically to the size of memory h. In fact it turns out to be optimal from a population viewpoint that there is a finite bound on agents’ memory capacities. We also show that it is the interplay of local interactions, direct and indirect reputation and memory constraints that is crucial for the emergence of cooperation. Taken by itself, none of these mechanisms is sufficient to yield cooperation. |
| Keywords: | evolution, reputation, bounded memory, cooperation. |
| JEL: | C70 C72 C73 |
| Date: | 2010–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ivi:wpasad:2010-25&r=soc |
| By: | Christian Helmers; Manasa Patnam |
| Abstract: | This paper identifies the effect of neighborhood peer groups on childhood skill acquisition using observational data. We incorporate spatial peer interaction, defined as a child’s nearest geographical neighbors, into a production function of child cognitive development in Andhra Pradesh, India. Our peer group construction takes the form of directed networks, whose structure allows us to identify peer effects and enables us to disentangle endogenous effects from contextual effects. We exploit variation over time to avoid confounding correlated with social effects. Our results suggest that spatial peer and neighborhood effects are strongly positively associated with a child’s cognitive skill formation. These peer effects hold even when we consider an alternative IV-based identification strategy and different variations to network size. Further, we find that the presence of peer groups helps provide insurance against the negative impact of idiosyncratic shocks to child learning. |
| Keywords: | Children, peer effects, cognitive skills, India |
| JEL: | C21 O15 R23 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2010-13&r=soc |
| By: | Bracht, Juergen |
| Abstract: | We present a simple mechanism that can be implemented in a simple experiment. In a modified trust game, the allocator can offer to pay the investor to cooperate. The mechanism is successful at implementing efficient outcomes: participants manage to achieve an efficient outcome, when this is possible, two—thirds of the time. While these results are encouraging, we find evidence that both concerns for fairness and motivation crowding out distort the incentives presented in the mechanism. |
| Keywords: | compensation mechanism, side payment, trust game, signaling, crowding out, concerns, for equity, taste for cooperation |
| JEL: | H42 D62 C92 |
| Date: | 2010–07–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:24136&r=soc |
| By: | Hakim Darbouche (Europe in the World Centre); Silvia Colombo (Istituto Affari Internazionali) |
| Abstract: | The protracted Western Sahara dispute, which has for over three decades pitted Morocco against the Sahrawi independentistas of the Polisario Front, epitomises the impotence of state-led conflict resolution efforts. The European Union (EU) has voluntarily remained withdrawn from the processes of transformation of this southern neighbourhood conflict, unable to surpass the politics of its inherent inter-governmentalism. This paper examines the alternative role played by local civil society organisations (CSO) in the transformation of the Western Sahara conflict. It analyses the input of a methodologically-informed selection of Moroccan and Sahrawi CSOs with a view to identifying the potential of more effectual EU involvement in the dispute, notably through cooperation with the relevant CSOs. The findings of this study point to the overwhelmingly fuelling role played by local CSOs in this particular conflict, but identify ways in which more peace-building civil actors could be empowered by the EU. These CSOs are often of grass-root origins with little or no links to the establishments on both sides of the conflict. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mcn:pwpapr:13&r=soc |