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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
| By: | Fehr, Ernst; Hoff, Karla |
| Abstract: | Economists have traditionally treated preferences as exogenously given. Preferences are assumed to be influenced by neither beliefs nor the constraints people face. As a consequence, changes in behaviour are explained exclusively in terms of changes in the set of feasible alternatives. Here the authors argue that the opposition to explaining behavioural changes in terms of preference changes is ill-founded, that the psychological properties of preferences render them susceptible to direct social influences, and that the impact of"society"on preferences is likely to have important economic and social consequences. |
| Keywords: | Biodiversity,Labor Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Cultural Policy,Gender and Social Development |
| Date: | 2011–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5760&r=soc |
| By: | PENARD Thierry; POUSSING Nicolas; SUIRE Raphaël |
| Abstract: | As people are spending more time online, it is important to evaluate the impact of Internet use on individual well-being. Internet use yields direct utility and economic returns (e.g. better job, higher productivity) that may increase life sa-tisfaction. But the Internet might also have detrimental effects (addiction, social isolation, e.g.). This paper empirically examines the relation between Internet use and subjective well-being. Using Luxemburgish data from a European so-cial survey, we find evidence that non users are less satisfied in their life than Internet users. This result holds when we control for socio-demographic charac-teristics, social capital, values and beliefs, and health and income. Moreover, the positive influence of Internet use is stronger for low income and young in-dividuals. These findings suggest that public policy aiming to reduce the digital divide are socially desirable.. |
| Keywords: | Internet; happiness; well-being; digital divide; social capital; social values |
| JEL: | A12 D12 D60 H40 L86 Z13 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irs:cepswp:2011-41&r=soc |
| By: | Uslaner, Eric (Stockholm University Linnaeus Center for Integration Studies - SULCIS) |
| Abstract: | There is a growing concern across the West that diversity (and immigration) has led to a decline in trust and social cohesion. In this working paper, which is based upon the core theoretical chapter of my book under contract to Cambridge University Press, Segregation and Mistrust, I argue that it is not diversity but segregation that drives down trust. I argue that the negative effects of diversity have been overstated, as has the simple idea that contact among people of different backgrounds will build trust. There is stronger evidence for Allport's "optimal contacts," where people have deeper and more frequent contacts based upon a foundation of equality. There is little evidence of a direct link between diverse contacts and trust. Nor is there strong evidence of a negative relationship between diversity and trust. I argue that it is not diversity but residential segregation that drives down trust. To build trust, people must live in neighborhoods that are integrated and diverse-and have heterogenous friendship networks-as Allport and Pettigrew have argued. I show that diversity and segregation are not the same thing and show that segregation leads to both greater inequality and worse outcomes on several measures across American communities and across nations. I also argue that governmental multiculturalism policies reinforce a strong sense of ethnic identity, which leads to high in-group trust at the expense of generalized trust. |
| Keywords: | trust; segregation; diversity; multiculturalism |
| JEL: | A13 Z13 |
| Date: | 2011–08–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sulcis:2011_005&r=soc |
| By: | Viitanen, Tarja (University of Otago) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the effect of parental divorce during childhood on generalized trust later on in life using Australian HILDA panel data. The dependent variable is composed of answers to the statement: “Generally speaking, most people can be trusted”. The main explanatory variables include the occurrence of parental divorce for the whole sample and the age at which parents divorced for the sub-sample. The analysis is conducted using random effects ordered probit, correlated random effects ordered probit and instrumental variables ordered probit models. The results indicate that the level of generalized trust is significantly affected by parental divorce for both men and women. This main result is very robust to alternative specifications. Furthermore, there is a marginally significant effect on the expressed level of generalized trust due to age at which parents divorced for women, but not men. |
| Keywords: | parental divorce, generalized trust, HILDA, random effects ordered probit, instrumental variables ordered probit |
| JEL: | J12 J13 H8 Z13 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5898&r=soc |
| By: | Leonardo Becchetti (University of Roma Tor Vergata); Giacomo Degli Antoni (University of Milano – Bicocca); Stefania Ottone (University of Milano – Bicocca); Nazaria Solferino (University of Calabria-Unical) |
| Abstract: | We document with a randomized experiment that being spectators and, to a lesser extent, stakeholders with veil of ignorance on relative payoffs, induces subjects who can choose distribution criteria to prefer rewarding talent (vis-à-vis effort, chance or strict egalitarianism) after guaranteeing a minimal egalitarian base. The removal of the veil of ignorance reduces dramatically such choice since most players opt or revise their decision in favour of the criterion which maximizes their own payoff (and, by doing so, end up being farther from the maximin choice). Large part (but not all) of the stakeholders’ choices before the removal of the veil of ignorance are driven by their performance beliefs since two thirds of them choose under the veil the criterion in which they assume to perform relatively better. |
| Keywords: | Distributive Justice; Perceived Fairness; Talent, Chance and Effort; Veil of Ignorance. |
| JEL: | C91 D63 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2011-204&r=soc |
| By: | Babur Wasim Arif (Federal Bureau of Statistics, Pakistan); Tetsushi Sonobe (National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies) |
| Abstract: | In industrial clusters, transaction costs are kept low and free riding is discouraged by a community mechanism developed through dense and repeated interactions among entrepreneurs. In such environments, new entrants without established reputations and connections are put at a distinct disadvantage. This negative effect on new entry must be neutralized for an industrial cluster to expand. Using enterprise level data from Pakistan, this study finds that personal networks are indeed important for successful enterprise operation, which works to the advantage of incumbents, but that subcontracting plays the role of virtual incubation in nurturing new enterprises, reinforcing the cluster’s dynamism. |
| Keywords: | South Asia, Pakistan, industrial cluster, social capital, subcontracting |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ngi:dpaper:11-08&r=soc |
| By: | Larson, Nathan |
| Abstract: | In a variety of settings, some payoff-relevant item spreads along a network of connected individuals. In some cases, the item will benefit those who receive it (for example, a music download, a stock tip, news about a new research funding source, etc.) while in other cases the impact may be negative (for example, viruses, both biological and electronic, financial contagion, and so on). Often, good and bad items may propagate along the same networks, so individuals must weigh the costs and benefits of being more or less connected to the network. The situation becomes more complicated (and more interesting) if individuals can also put effort into security, where security can be thought of as a screening technology that allows an individual to keep getting the benefits of network connectivity while blocking out the bad items. Drawing on the network literatures in economics, epidemiology, and applied math, we formulate a model of network security that can be used to study individual incentives to expand and secure networks and characterize properties of a symmetric equilibrium. |
| Keywords: | social networks; network security; network robustness; contagion; random graphs |
| JEL: | I18 D85 C73 |
| Date: | 2011–08–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:32822&r=soc |
| By: | Jeffrey B. Liebman; Erzo F.P. Luttmer |
| Abstract: | This paper presents the results of a field experiment in which a sample of older workers was randomized between a treatment group that was given information about key Social Security provisions and a control group that was not. The experiment was designed to examine whether it is possible to affect individual behavior using a relatively inexpensive informational intervention about the provisions of a public program and to explore the mechanisms underlying the behavior change. We find that our relatively mild intervention (sending an informational brochure and an invitation to a web-tutorial) increased labor force participation one year later by 4 percentage points relative to the control group mean of 74 percent and that this effect is driven by a 7.2 percentage point increase among female subjects. The information intervention increased the perceived returns to working longer, especially among female respondents, which suggests that the behavioral response can be attributed at least in part to updated information about Social Security. |
| JEL: | C93 D83 H55 J26 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17287&r=soc |
| By: | Chong Huang (Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the interaction between coordination and social learning in a dynamic regime change game. Social learning provides public information to which players overreact due to the coordination motive. So coordination affects the aggregation of private signals through players' optimal choices. Such endogenous provision of public information results in inefficient herds with positive probability, even though private signals have an unbounded likelihood ratio property. Therefore, social learning is a source of coordination failure. An extension shows that if players could individually learn, inefficient herding disappears, and thus coordination is successful almost surely. This paper also demonstrates that along the same history, the belief convergence differs in different equilibria. Finally, social learning can lead to higher social welfare when the fundamentals are bad. |
| Keywords: | Coordination, social learning, inefficient herding, dynamic global game, common belief |
| JEL: | C72 C73 D82 D83 |
| Date: | 2011–08–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pen:papers:11-021&r=soc |
| By: | Daniel Oesch; Oliver Lipps |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the existence of a habituation effect to unemployment: Do the unemployed suffer less from job loss if unemployment is more widespread, if their own unemployment lasts longer and if unemployment is a recurrent experience? The underlying idea is that unemployment hysteresis may operate through a sociological channel: if many people in the community lose their job and remain unemployed over an extended period, the psychological cost of being unemployed diminishes and the pressure to accept a new job declines. We analyze this question with individual-level data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (1984-2009) and the Swiss Household Panel (2000-2009). We find no evidence for a mitigating effect of high surrounding unemployment on unemployed individuals¿ subjective well-being: Becoming unemployed hurts as much when regional unemployment is high as when it is low. Likewise, the strongly harmful impact of being unemployed on well-being does not wear off over time, nor do repeated episodes of unemployment make it any better. It thus appears doubtful that an unemployment shock becomes persistent because the unemployed become used to, and hence reasonably content with, being without a job. |
| Keywords: | Subjective well-being, unemployment, hysteresis, happiness, social norm |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp393&r=soc |