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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
| By: | Fiorillo, Damiano; Sabatini, Fabio |
| Abstract: | This paper presents the first empirical assessment of the causal relationship between social capital and health in Italy. The analysis draws on the 2000 wave of the Multipurpose Survey on Household conducted by the Italian Institute of Statistics on a representative sample of the population (n = 50,618). Our measure of social capital is the frequency of meetings with friends. Based on probit and instrumental variables estimates, we find that higher levels of social capital increase perceived good health. |
| Keywords: | health; instrumental variables; income; social interactions; social capital; Italy |
| JEL: | Z1 I12 H75 Z13 I1 |
| Date: | 2011–07–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:32392&r=soc |
| By: | Gaëlle Ferrant (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne); Yannick Bourquin (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides evidence that local social interactions within etnic groups may explain the puzzling variations in labour-market outcomes across individuals. Peer effects work first by creating pressure on labor-market participation, second, by conveying information about job opportunities and by raising wages. These effects differ through a selection effect : gender and ethnic groups who are less integrated in the labour market benefit more from peer effect. Finally, networks exhibit decreasing returns. The problems of endogeneity and simultaneity of local peer effects are addressed by using (i) data aggregated at the province level, (ii) the distribution of the sex of the peers' siblings as an instrumental variable and (iii) a quasi-panel data approach relying on the Hausman-Taylor estimator. The importance of social interactions in the labour market suggests that a social multiplier exists and our estimates show that any labour-market shock is magnified with an elasticity of 0.5. |
| Keywords: | Peer efects, development economics, labour, South Africa. |
| JEL: | J15 J16 O18 Z13 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:cesdoc:11044&r=soc |
| By: | Heinz, Matthias; Juranek, Steffen; Rau, Holger A. |
| Abstract: | We analyze dictator allocation decisions in an experiment where the recipients have to earn the pot to be divided with a real-effort task. As the recipients move before the dictators, their effort decisions resemble the first move in a trust game. Depending on the recipients' performance, the size of the pot is either high or low. We compare this real-effort treatment to a baseline treatment where the pot is a windfall gain and where a lottery determines the pot size. In the baseline treatment, reciprocity cannot play a role. We find that female dictators show reciprocity and decrease their taking-rates significantly in the real-effort treatment. This treatment effect is larger when female dictators make a decision on recipients who successfully generated a large pot compared to the case where the recipients performed poorly. By contrast, there is no treatment effect with male dictators, who generally exhibit more sefish behavior. -- |
| Keywords: | Gender,Reciprocity,Dictator Game,Real Effort |
| JEL: | C72 C91 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:dicedp:24&r=soc |
| By: | Maria Bondes (GIGA Institute of Asian Studies) |
| Abstract: | The proliferation of social organizations in China has engendered a lively debate about how to conceptualize these social forces. This paper argues that such a conceptualization should take into account the role that both the party?state and social actors attribute to social organizations. With an empirical case study from the western Chinese countryside, this paper explores how social organizations both adapt to the restrictive authoritarian framework and negotiate the spaces opening up to society in the realms of environmental and social politics. The study shows that while the party?state understands organizations as consultants and partners in service provision, they have a deviating self?image with the Western concepts of “NGO” and “civil society” becoming increasingly relevant as frames of reference. While their practices remain within the limits imposed by the authoritarian framework, they impact policy formulation, local political participation, and the formation of social networks according to their own self?image as members of a budding Chinese civil society. |
| Keywords: | China, civil society, NGO, social organizations |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gig:wpaper:173&r=soc |
| By: | Devarajan, Shantayanan; Khemani, Stuti; Walton, Michael |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the potential role of civil society action in increasing state accountability for development in Sub-Saharan Africa. It further develops the analytical framework of the World Development Report 2004 on accountability relationships, to emphasize the underlying political economy drivers of accountability and implications for how civil society is constituted and functions. It argues on this basis that the most important domain for improving accountability is through the political relations between citizens, civil society, and state leadership. The evidence broadly suggests that when higher-level political leadership provides sufficient or appropriate powers for citizen participation in holding within-state agencies or frontline providers accountable, there is frequently positive impact on outcomes. However, the big question remaining for such types of interventions is how to improve the incentives of higher-level leadership to pursue appropriate policy design and implementation. The paper argues that there is substantial scope for greater efforts in this domain, including through the support of external aid agencies. Such efforts and support should, however, build on existing political and civil society structures (rather than transplanting"best practice"” initiatives from elsewhere), and be structured for careful monitoring and assessment of impact. |
| Keywords: | Public Sector Corruption&Anticorruption Measures,Parliamentary Government,Social Accountability,Civil Society,ICT Policy and Strategies |
| Date: | 2011–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5733&r=soc |
| By: | Torero, Maximo; Viceisza, Angelino |
| Abstract: | We conduct framed trust games using contract dairy farmers in Vietnam as first movers to assess the impact of potential collusion on trust. Disaggregated analysis suggests that female farmers are more likely to trust overall, but are also more responsive to the addition of a third party and potential collusion. A third party induces them to trust at higher levels, but potential collusion between the trustee and the third party also induces them to trust at lower levels. Our findings corroborate well with existing studies on gender differences in decision making, which suggest that women's social preferences are more context-specific than men's. |
| Keywords: | collusion, field experiment, Gender, trust game, |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1100&r=soc |
| By: | Sara LaLumia; James M. Sallee |
| Abstract: | How much are people willing to forego to be honest, to follow the rules? When people do break the rules, what can standard data sources tell us about their behavior? Standard economic models of crime typically assume that individuals are indifferent to dishonesty, so that they will cheat or lie as long as the expected pecuniary benefits exceed the expected costs of being caught and punished. We investigate this presumption by studying the response to a change in tax reporting rules that made it much more difficult for taxpayers to evade taxes by inappropriately claiming additional dependents. The policy reform induced a substantial reduction in the number of dependents claimed, which indicates that many filers had been cheating before the reform. Yet, the number of filers who availed themselves of this evasion opportunity is dwarfed by the number of filers who passed up substantial tax savings by not claiming extra dependents. By declining the opportunity to cheat, these taxpayers reveal information about their willingness to pay to be honest. We present a novel method for inferring the characteristics of taxpayers in the absence of audit data. Our analysis suggests both that this willingness to pay to be honest is large on average and that it varies significantly across the population of taxpayers. |
| JEL: | H24 H26 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17247&r=soc |
| By: | Ramon Marimon; Juan Pablo Nicolini; Pedro Teles |
| Abstract: | We study the interplay between competition and trust as efficiency enhancing mechanisms in the private provision of money. With commitment, trust is automatically achieved and competition ensures efficiency. Without commitment, competition plays no role. Trust does play a role but requires a bound on efficiency. Stationary inflation must be non-negative and, therefore, the Friedman rule cannot be achieved.<br>The quality of money can only be observed after its purchasing capacity is realized. In that sense money is an experience good. |
| JEL: | E40 E50 E58 E60 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ptu:wpaper:w201118&r=soc |
| By: | Sabatini, Fabio |
| Abstract: | This paper presents the first empirical investigation into the effect of e-shopping on subjective well-being. The analysis relies on an Italian nationally and regionally representative dataset from Italy (n = 4,130) drawn from the 2008 wave of the Survey of Household Income and Wealth (SHIW) carried out by the Bank of Italy. Probit, OLS regressions and instrumental variables estimates show that e-shopping is strongly and positively associated with subjective well-being. |
| Keywords: | happiness; subjective well-being; Internet; business-to-consumer e-commerce; B2C; e-shopping; instrumental variables; Italy |
| JEL: | I31 E2 Z19 L86 |
| Date: | 2011–07–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:32393&r=soc |