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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
| By: | Leonardo Becchetti (Department of Economics, Universitˆ Tor Vergata); Stefano Castriota (Department of Economics, Universitˆ di Perugia); Pierluigi Conzo (Università di Roma Tor Vergata & EIEF) |
| Abstract: | In low income countries grass-root collective action is a well known substitute for government provision of public goods. In our research we wonder what is its effect on the law of motion of social capital, a crucial microeconomic determinant of economic development. To this purpose we structure a ?sandwich? experiment in which participants play a public good game (PGG) between two trust games (TG1 and TG2). Our findings show that the change in trustworthiness between the two trust game rounds generated by the PGG treatment is crucially affected by the subjective satisfaction about the PGG rather than by standard objective measures related to PGG players? behavior. These results highlight that subjective satisfaction after collective action has relevant predictive power on social capital creation providing information which can be crucial to design successful self-organized resource regimes. |
| Keywords: | trust games, public good games, randomized experiment, social capital, subjective wellbeing |
| JEL: | O12 C93 Z13 |
| Date: | 2011–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ent:wpaper:wp29&r=soc |
| By: | Patacchini, Eleonora (Sapienza University of Rome); Zenou, Yves (Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the intergenerational transmission of the strength of religion focusing on the interplay between family and peer effects. We develop a theoretical model suggesting that both peer quality and parental effort are of importance for the religious behavior of the children. We then bring the model to the data by using a very detailed dataset of adolescent friendship networks in the United States. We find that, for religious parents, the higher is the fraction of religious peers, the more parents put effort in transmitting their religiosity, indicating cultural complementarity. For non-religious parents, we obtain the reverse, indicating cultural substitutability. Concerning the success in transmitting the religious trait, we find that, for religious parents, the fraction of religious peers has only an indirect effect (through parental effort) while, for non-religious parents, there is a lower indirect effect and a statistically significant and sizeable direct effect of peers on the transmission of the non-religious trait. |
| Keywords: | religion, cultural transmission, peer effects, network fixed effects |
| JEL: | A14 D85 Z12 |
| Date: | 2011–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5787&r=soc |
| By: | Marcel Fafchamps; Eliana La Ferrara |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the incomes of individuals who have joined self-help groups in poor neighborhoods of Nairobi. Self-help groups are often advocated as a way of facilitating income pooling. We …nd that incomes are indeed more correlated among individuals in the same group than among individuals who belong to different groups. Using an original methodology, we test whether this correlation is due to self-selection of similar individuals into the same groups. We find that this correlation is not driven by positive assortative matching. If anything, selection works in the opposite direction: incomes from group activities would be more correlated if individuals were matched at random. These findings are consistent with the idea that self-help groups play a mutual assistance role. |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:igi:igierp:401&r=soc |
| By: | Yamamura, Eiji |
| Abstract: | Japan’s 2011 natural disasters were accompanied by a devastating nuclear disaster in Fukushima. This paper used cross-country data obtained immediately after the Japanese disaster to explore how, and the extent to which, corruption affects the perception of citizens regarding the risk of nuclear accidents. Endogeneity bias was controlled for using instrumental variables. The cross-country analysis showed that citizens in less corrupt countries tend to perceive there to be a lower possibility of nuclear accident. |
| Keywords: | Natural disaster; Nuclear accident; Corruption; Japan |
| JEL: | D73 Q48 D82 Q54 |
| Date: | 2011–06–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:31708&r=soc |
| By: | Ligthart, J.E.; Oudheusden, P. van (Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | We measure the contribution of fiscal decentralization to trust in government. Using repeated cross-country survey data of individuals on several measures of trust in govern- ment over the 1994-2007 period, we estimate an ordered response model of the government trust and fiscal decentralization nexus. We control for unobserved country characteristics, macroeconomic determinants, and individual characteristics. Our main finding is that fiscal decentralization increases trust in government. More specifically, a one percentage point increase in fiscal decentralization causes roughly a four-fifths of a percentage point increase in government trust. The beneficial effect of fiscal decentralization on trust in government is neither limited to nor necessarily large for relatively decentralized countries. |
| Keywords: | Fiscal Decentralization;Government Trust;Social Capital |
| JEL: | D70 H11 H70 H72 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:kubcen:2011073&r=soc |
| By: | James A. Best |
| Abstract: | In this paper, I look at the interaction between social learning and cooperative behavior. I model this using a social dilemma game with publicly observed sequential actions and asymmetric information about payoffs. I find that some informed agents in this model act, individually and without collusion, to conceal the privately optimal action. Because the privately optimal action is socially costly the behavior of informed agents can lead to a Pareto improvement in a social dilemma. In my model I show that it is possible to get cooperative behavior if information is restricted to a small but non-zero proportion of the population. Moreover, such cooperative behavior occurs in a nite setting where it is public knowledge which agent will act last. The proportion of cooperative agents within the population can be made arbitrarily close to 1 by increasing the infinite number of agents playing the game. Finally, I show that under a broad set of conditions that it is a Pareto improvement on a corner value, in the ex-ante welfare sense, for an interior proportion of the population to be informed. |
| Keywords: | Asymmetric information, cooperation, efficiency, social learning, social dilemmas. |
| JEL: | C72 D62 D82 D83 |
| Date: | 2011–06–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edn:esedps:206&r=soc |
| By: | Gauri, Varun; Woolcock, Michael; Desai, Deval |
| Abstract: | The capacity to act collectively is not just a matter of groups sharing interests, incentives and values (or being sufficiently small), as standard economic theory predicts, but a prior and shared understanding of the constituent elements of problem(s) and possible solutions. From this standpoint, the failure to act collectively can stem at least in part from relevant groups failing to ascribe a common intersubjective meaning to situations, processes and events. Though this is a general phenomenon, it is particularly salient in countries characterized by societal fragility and endemic conflict. We develop a conceptual account of intersubjective meanings, explain its relevance to development practice and research, and examine its implications for development work related to building the rule of law and managing common pool resources. |
| Keywords: | Corporate Law,Public Sector Corruption&Anticorruption Measures,Cultural Policy,Labor Policies,Population Policies |
| Date: | 2011–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5707&r=soc |
| By: | Alireza Abbasi; Jorn Altmann (Technology Management, Economics, and Policy, College of Engineering, Seoul National University); Liaquat Hossain |
| Abstract: | In this study, we develop a theoretical model based on social network theories and analytical methods for exploring collaboration (co-authorship) networks of scholars. We use measures from social network analysis (SNA) (i.e., normalized degree centrality, normalized closeness centrality, normalized betweenness centrality, normalized eigenvector centrality, average ties strength, and efficiency) for examining the effect of social networks on the (citation-based) performance of scholars in a given discipline (i.e., information systems). Results from our statistical analysis using a Poisson regression model suggest that research performance of scholars (g-index) is positively correlated with four SNA measures except for the normalized betweenness centrality and the normalized closeness centrality measures. Furthermore, it reveals that only normalized degree centrality, efficiency, and average ties strength have a positive significant influence on the g-index (as a performance measure). The normalized eigenvector centrality has a negative significant influence on the g-index. Based on these results, we can imply that scholars, who are connected to many distinct scholars, have a better citation-based performance (g-index) than scholars with fewer connections. Additionally, scholars with large average ties strengths (i.e., repeated co-authorships) show a better research performance than those with low tie strengths (e.g., single co-authorships with many different scholars). The results related to efficiency show that scholars, who maintain a strong co-authorship relationship to only one co-author of a group of linked co-authors, perform better than those researchers with many relationships to the same group of linked co-authors. The negative effect of the normalized eigenvector suggests that scholars should work with many students instead of other well-performing scholars. Consequently, we can state that the professional social network of researchers can be used to predict the future performance of researchers. |
| Keywords: | Collaboration, citation-based research performance, co-authorship networks, social network analysis measures, regression, correlation. |
| JEL: | C02 C13 C25 C43 C51 C52 D02 D85 H81 L25 M11 M12 O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2011–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:snv:dp2009:201176&r=soc |
| By: | Jérémy CELSE |
| Abstract: | We explore the behavioural and affective differences between subjects practicing sport activities and subjects not practicing sport. Are athletes more distressed by unfavourable social comparisons and more prone to engage in hostile behaviour than non-athletes? Using experimental methods, we investigate the connection between sport practice and antisocial behaviour. In our experiment we capture the satisfaction subjects derive from unflattering social comparisons by asking them to evaluate their satisfaction after being informed of their own endowment and after being informed of their opponent’s endowment. Then subjects can decide to reduce their opponent’s endowment by incurring a cost. We observe that sport plays a key role on both individual well-being and behaviour: 1) sport practice amplifies the negative impact of unfavourable social comparisons on individual well-being and 2) sport practice exerts subjects to reduce others’ income. Besides the satisfaction sporty subjects report from social comparisons predicts their decisions to reduce others’ income. Finally we provide empirical evidences suggesting that envy affects significantly athletes’ satisfaction and behaviour. |
| Date: | 2011–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lam:wpaper:16-11&r=soc |
| By: | Emanuela Marrocu; Raffaele Paci; Stefano Usai |
| Abstract: | This paper aims at assessing the role of various dimension of proximity on the innovative capacity of a region within the context of a knowledge production function where we consider as main internal inputs R&D expenditures and human capital. We want to assess if, and how much, the creation of new ideas in a certain region is the result of flows of information and knowledge coming from proximate regions. In particular, we examine in details the concept of proximity combining the usual geographical dimension with the institutional, the technological, the social and the organizational proximity. The analysis is implemented for an ample dataset referring to 287 regions in 29 countries (EU27 plus Norway, Switzerland) for the last decade. Results show that human capital and R&D are clearly essential for innovative activity but with an impact which is much higher for the former factor. As for the proximity and network effects, we find that geography is important but less than technological and cognitive proximity. Social and organizational networks are also relevant but their role is more modest. Finally, most of these proximities prove to have a complementary role in shaping innovative activity across regions in Europe. |
| Keywords: | knowledge production; technological spillover; proximity; networks |
| JEL: | O31 C31 O18 R12 O52 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cns:cnscwp:201109&r=soc |