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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
| By: | KLEIN Carlo |
| Abstract: | The theoretical analysis of the concepts of social capital and of social cohesion shows that social capital should be considered as a micro concept whereas social cohesion, being a broader concept than social capital, is a more appropriate concept for macro analysis. Therefore, we suggest that data on the individual level should only be used to analyze the relationship between social capital, social cohesion indicators and subjective well-being and that they do not allow commenting on the level of social cohesion in a society. For this last type of analyses aggregated indicators of social cohesion have to be computed which is not the issue of this paper. Our empirical analysis is based on individual data for Luxembourg in 2008. In general, our results suggest that investments in social capital generate monetary returns (increased income) and psychic returns (increased SWB) even in a highly developed and multicultural country like Luxembourg. When we are adding on the micro level variables representing the economic domain of social cohesion following Bernard (1999), then we observe that this domain also has an effect on income and on SWB. Therefore, we recommend including the economic domain in any future analysis using the concept of social cohesion. |
| Keywords: | social capital; social cohesion; subjective well-being; EVS 2008 |
| JEL: | A10 D10 I30 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irs:cepswp:2011-36&r=soc |
| By: | Liu, Xiaodong; Patacchini, Eleonora; Zenou, Yves |
| Abstract: | We develop two different social network models with different economic foundations. In the local-aggregate model, it is the sum of friends' efforts in some activity that affects the utility of each individual while, in the local-average model, it is costly to deviate from the average effort of friends. Even though the two models are fundamentally different in terms of behavioral foundation, their implications in terms of Nash equilibrium are relatively close since only the adjacency (social interaction) matrix differs in equilibrium, one being the row-normalized version of the other. We test these alternative mechanisms of social interactions to study peer effects in education, sport and screen activities for adolescents in the United States using the AddHealth data. We extend Kelejian's (2008) J test for spatial econometric models helping differentiate between these two behavioral models. We find that peer effects are not significant for screen activities (like e.g. video games). On the contrary, for sport activities, we find that students are mostly influenced by the aggregate activity of their friends (local-aggregate model) while, for education, we show that both the aggregate performance at school of friends and conformism matter, even though the magnitude of the effect is higher for the latter. |
| Keywords: | conformism; econometrics of networks; peer effects; Social networks |
| JEL: | A14 D85 Z13 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8477&r=soc |
| By: | Marco Castillo (Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science and Department of Economics, George Mason University); Michael Carter (Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California - Davis) |
| Abstract: | Catastrophic events can dramatically alter existing social and economic relationships. The consequences can be long-lasting and give rise to heterogeneity of behavior across populations. We investigate the impact of a large negative shock on altruism, trust and reciprocity in 30 small Honduran communities diversely affected by Hurricane Mitch in 1998. We conduct a survey of communities and behavioral experiments three and four years after the event. We find that the mean and variance of behavior are nonlinearly related to the severity of the weather shock affecting the community. Also, there is a substitution away from formal local organizations to informal arrangements. |
| Keywords: | noncooperative games, experimental economics, norms |
| JEL: | C72 C92 C93 |
| Date: | 2011–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gms:wpaper:1026&r=soc |
| By: | Braha, Dan; Stacey, Blake; Bar-Yam, Yaneer |
| Abstract: | A substantial number of studies have extended the work on universal properties in physical systems to complex networks in social, biological, and technological systems. In this paper, we present a complex networks perspective on interfirm organizational networks by mapping, analyzing and modeling the spatial structure of a large interfirm competition network across a variety of sectors and industries within the United States. We propose two micro-dynamic models that are able to reproduce empirically observed characteristics of competition networks as a natural outcome of a minimal set of general mechanisms governing the formation of competition networks. Both models, which utilize different approaches yet apply common principles to network formation give comparable results. There is an asymmetry between companies that are considered competitors, and companies that consider others as their competitors. All companies only consider a small number of other companies as competitors; however, there are a few companies that are considered as competitors by many others. Geographically, the density of corporate headquarters strongly correlates with local population density, and the probability two firms are competitors declines with geographic distance. We construct these properties by growing a corporate network with competitive links using random incorporations modulated by population density and geographic distance. Our new analysis, methodology and empirical results are relevant to various phenomena of social and market behavior, and have implications to research fields such as economic geography, economic sociology, and regional economic development. |
| Keywords: | Organizational networks; Interfirm competition; Economic geography; Social networks; Spatial networks; Network dynamics; Firm size dynamics |
| JEL: | Z1 F0 L11 C0 D40 Z13 D85 L1 R58 O1 L14 L2 R0 L8 R12 A14 D21 L0 L25 R3 L6 D4 L7 D0 L16 L13 J10 L9 C15 L22 R11 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:32142&r=soc |
| By: | Masten, S.E.; Prüfer, J. (Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | Impersonal exchange has been a major driver of economic development. But transactors with no stake in maintaining an ongoing relationship have little incentive to honor deals. Therefore, all economies have developed institutions to support honest trade and realize the gains of impersonal exchange. We analyze the relative capacities of communities (or social networks) and courts to secure cooperation among heterogeneous, impersonal transactors. We find that communities and courts are complementary in the sense that they tend to support cooperation for different sets of transactions but that the existence of courts weakens the effectiveness of community enforcement. By relating the effectiveness of enforcement institutions to changes in the cost and risks of long-distance trade, driven in part by improvement in shipbuilding methods, our analysis also provides an explanation for the emergence of the medieval Law Merchant and its subsequent supersession by state courts. |
| Keywords: | Institutions;Contract Enforcement;Communities;Courts;Social Networks;Law Merchant;Lex Mercatoria;Commercial Revolution. |
| JEL: | D02 D71 N43 P48 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:kubcen:2011074&r=soc |
| By: | David Zetland (Department of Economics, Wageningen University); Marina Della Giusta (Department of Economics, University of Reading) |
| Abstract: | We examine the impact of information regarding other people’s choices on individual choice in a public good experiment with two separate treatments. In the implicit treatment, subjects do not see the average contribution of others in their group, but they can calculate it from the information available. In the explicit treatment, subjects see the average contribution of others in their group. If subjects are rational calculating agents as suggested in mainstream economic theory there should be no difference in observed behavior across treatments: agents should use all available information to make decisions. What we see instead is quite different and consistent with the presence of social norms: first, players change their behavior in response to the change in displayed information; second, changes in individual behavior produce identical group outcomes, in terms of total payoffs or efficiency across the two treatments. How does this happen? The display of the average contribution of others results in behavior consistent with a focal point (Schelling, 1960), i.e., more subjects behave as reciprocators (conditioning their contributions on the contributions of others), and fewer behave as cooperators or free-riders (unconditionally contributing a lot or a little, respectively). This change in behavior differs by gender: women behave similarly to men when they see the average contribution by others; when they cannot, they behave differently, favoring unconditional strategies of free-riding or cooperation. Men’s behavior, in contrast to women’s adaption, does not adjust to social cues, as suggested by Croson and Gneezy (2009). |
| Keywords: | public goods, focal points, social norms, gender, experiments |
| JEL: | D0 |
| Date: | 2011–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rdg:emxxdp:em-dp2011-01&r=soc |
| By: | Marina Della Giusta (Department of Economics, University of Reading); Nigar Hashimzade (Department of Economics, University of Reading); Sarah Jewell (Department of Economics, University of Reading) |
| Abstract: | We focus on the role of conformity with social norms and concern with relative income in the decision to supply unpaid care for parents. Individuals have different propensities to be influenced by both relative income and social norms, and face a time constraint on the provision of both paid work (which increases their income) and unpaid care. We estimate our model with a sample drawn from the British Household Panel Survey to assess these effects empirically, estimating both the supply of unpaid care and the effect on utility of different preferences for relative income and unpaid care. We find that providing care decreases individual utility: long care hours are bad for carers (and care recipients). Women feature disproportionately amongst care providers and their motivations for care provision differ to men's, both in respect to the importance attached to relative income and to conformity with social norms. After controlling for other factors, men are more envious than women (attach more weight to relative income) and indi¤erent to social norms in relation to caring, whereas the opposite holds for women, so status races are bad for the supply of care within families and particularly men's supply. This is an issue as caring (in right amounts) can be good for carers too if they agree with caring norms, even when they prefer paid work to caring (as men do). We discuss implications for care provision and working arrangements. |
| Keywords: | care, unpaid work, social norms, relative income |
| JEL: | J22 Z13 D01 D13 |
| Date: | 2011–07–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rdg:emxxdp:em-dp2011-03&r=soc |
| By: | Bruno, Bruna |
| Abstract: | The paper presents a model where the self esteem and the self determination mechanisms are explicitly modelled in order to explain how they affect the intrinsic motivation and its impact on individual choices. The aim is to reconcile different explanations (and consequences) of the motivation crowding theory in a unique theoretical framework where the locus of control is introduced in a one period maximisation problem and the intrinsic motivation is assumed as an exogenous psychological attitude. The analysis is based on the different effect of the self esteem mechanism on intrinsic motivation input oriented or output oriented. Results show that crowding out of intrinsic motivation depends on the self determination sensitivity and the individual belief about one’s own self. |
| Keywords: | intrinsic motivation; crowding out; self-esteem; self-determination. |
| JEL: | D11 D64 J22 |
| Date: | 2011–07–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:32218&r=soc |