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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
| By: | Fischer, Justina |
| Abstract: | This paper asks whether trust in political institutions depends on individual’s political leaning and the political ideology of the national government. We employ information on 140'000 individuals in 30 democratic OECD countries from the World Values Survey, 1981 – 2007, and estimate so-called micro-based pseudo-panel two-way fixed effects models. Distinguishing between extreme and moderate versions of leftist and rightist political leaning, our estimates reveal that political trust increases non-linearly in the degree of individual’s conservatism. We also find that political leaning is not instrumental to improving one's own socio-economic situation, thus rather constituting an expressive behavior. If government ideology matches individual’s political preferences, trust in political institutions is increased. In contrast, the ‘apolitical’ appears to distrust the political system as such. We also find evidence for a symmetric, but incomplete convergence of party ideologies to the median voter position. Implications for vote abstention are discussed. |
| Keywords: | political trust; government ideology; political leaning; World Values Survey |
| JEL: | H11 D72 Z13 |
| Date: | 2011–09–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:33344&r=soc |
| By: | Nordblom, Katarina (Department of Economics); Zamac, Jovan (Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper offers an explanation to why the general observation that elderly hold stronger moral attitudes than young ones may be an age rather than a cohort effect. We apply mechanisms from social psychology to explain how personal norms may evolve over the life cycle. We assume that people update their norms influenced by their own past behavior (e.g., cognitive dissonance) and/or by the attitudes of their peers (normative conformity). We apply the theory on actual norm distributions for young and old concerning tax evasion. Allowing for heterogeneous updating of norms where only those who identify with their network are actually conforming with it, while the others are only influenced by their own past behavior, we can explain the difference between young and old people’s moral values as an age effect through endogenous norm formation. |
| Keywords: | Social norms; Endogenous norms; Tax evasion; Cognitive dissonance; Self-signaling; Normative conformity |
| JEL: | H26 |
| Date: | 2011–06–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uunewp:2011_013&r=soc |
| By: | Mina Baliamoune-Lutz |
| Abstract: | Using the Arellano-Bond dynamic panel GMM estimator, this paper explores the effects of aid, institutions, and social cohesion on per-capita income growth in 34 African countries, focusing in particular on the interplay of aid and institutions and the interplay of aid and social cohesion. The empirical results indicate that social cohesion enhances the growth effects of aid but there is a threshold effect, suggesting that aid becomes effective in enhancing growth in countries with higher social cohesion. Surprisingly, the results show that beyond a certain level of improvements in institutional quality, institutions (political rights and civil liberties) reduce the effectiveness of aid. We discuss the implications of these results. |
| Keywords: | Growth; aid effectiveness; institutions; social cohesion; Africa |
| JEL: | F35 F43 O17 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:icr:wpicer:13-2011&r=soc |
| By: | Niklas Potrafke (Department of Economics, University of Konstanz, Germany); Heinrich Ursprung (Department of Economics, University of Konstanz, Germany) |
| Abstract: | This study empirically assesses the influence of globalization on the institutional root causes of gender equality as measured by the new OECD Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI). We capture the multifaceted concept of globalization with the KOF index and its three sub-indices which measure the economic, social and political dimensions of globalization. Observing the progress of globalization for a sample of almost one hundred countries at ten year intervals starting in 1970, we find that economic and social globalization exerted a decidedly positive influence on the social institutions which underlie gender equality. |
| Keywords: | globalization, gender equality, social institutions |
| JEL: | O11 O57 |
| Date: | 2011–09–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:knz:dpteco:1133&r=soc |
| By: | Finan, Frederico S. (University of California, Berkeley); Schechter, Laura (University of Wisconsin-Madison) |
| Abstract: | While vote-buying is common, little is known about how politicians determine who to target. We argue that vote-buying can be sustained by an internalized norm of reciprocity. Receiving money engenders feelings of obligation. Combining survey data on vote-buying with an experiment-based measure of reciprocity, we show that politicians target reciprocal individuals. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of social preferences in determining political behavior. |
| Keywords: | vote-buying, reciprocity, redistributive politics, voting, social preferences |
| JEL: | H0 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5965&r=soc |
| By: | Clemens Hetschko; Andreas Knabe; Ronnie Schöb |
| Abstract: | Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel from 1984-2009, we follow persons from their working life into their retirement years and find that, on average, employed people maintain their life satisfaction upon retirement, while long-term unemployed people report a substantial increase in their life satisfaction when they retire. These results are robust to controlling for changes in other life circumstances and suggest that retiring is associated with a switch in the relevant social norms that causes an increase in identity utility for the formerly unemployed. This is supportive of the idea that, by including identity in the utility function, results from the empirical life satisfaction literature can be reconciled with the economic theory of individual utility. |
| Keywords: | life satisfaction, retirement, unemployment, identity, social norm |
| JEL: | I31 J26 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp399&r=soc |
| By: | Furtado, Delia (University of Connecticut); Marcén, Miriam (University of Zaragoza); Sevilla-Sanz, Almudena (University of Oxford) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the role of culture in determining divorce decisions by examining country of origin differences in divorce rates of immigrants in the United States. Because childhood-arriving immigrants are all exposed to a common set of US laws and institutions, we interpret relationships between their divorce tendencies and home country divorce rates as evidence of the effect of culture. Our results are robust to controlling for several home country variables including average church attendance and GDP. Moreover, specifications with country of origin fixed effects suggest that divorce probabilities are especially low for immigrants from countries with low divorce rates that reside amidst a large number of co-ethnics. Supplemental analyses indicate that divorce culture has a stronger impact on the divorce decisions of females than of males pointing to a potentially gendered nature of divorce taboos. |
| Keywords: | immigrants, culture, divorce |
| JEL: | J12 Z13 J61 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5960&r=soc |
| By: | Clark, Andrew E. (Paris School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The role of money in producing sustained subjective well-being seems to be seriously compromised by social comparisons and habituation. But does that necessarily mean that we would be better off doing something else instead? This paper suggests that the phenomena of comparison and habituation are actually found in a considerable variety of economic and social activities, rendering conclusions regarding well-being policy less straightforward. |
| Keywords: | comparison, habituation, income, unemployment, marriage, divorce, health, religion, policy |
| JEL: | D01 D31 H00 I31 J12 J28 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5966&r=soc |
| By: | Erich Gundlach; Matthias Opfinger |
| Abstract: | We find a U-shaped relation between happiness and religiosity in cross-country panel data after controlling for income levels. At a given level of income, the same level of happiness can be reached with high and low levels of religiosity, but not with intermediate levels. A rise in income causes an increase in happiness along with a decline of religiosity. Our interpretation of the empirical results is that the indifference curves for religiosity and other commodities of the utility function are hump-shaped. |
| Keywords: | Happiness, religiosity, utility function, long-run development |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gig:wpaper:163&r=soc |
| By: | Pettersson, Jan (Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | We study re-entry to the workforce of fully retired persons, so-called unretirement, and whether the decision to resume work depends primarily on social or economic reasons. Using Swedish register data for already retired individuals older than 55, we find unretirement to vary between 6 and 14 per cent under two different definitions. Our results largely support an interpretation that unretirement is a life-style decision rather than a response to a realized negative economic situation post retirement. However, economic motives seem to be more important for younger pensioners. |
| Keywords: | Retirement; Unretirement; Pensions; Labour supply |
| JEL: | J14 J26 |
| Date: | 2011–09–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uunewp:2011_014&r=soc |
| By: | Mauricio Armellini (Durham Business School); Parantap Basu (Durham Business School) |
| Abstract: | An optimal education subsidy formula is derived using an overlapping generations model with parental altruism. The model predicts that public education subsidy is greater in economies with lesser parental altruism because a benevolent government has to compensate for the shortfall in private education spending of less altruistic parents with a finite life. On the other hand, growth is higher in economies with greater parental altruism. Cross-country regressions using the World Values Survey for altruism lend support to our model predictions. The model provides insights about the reasons for higher education subsidy in richer countries. |
| Date: | 2011–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dur:durham:2011_07&r=soc |
| By: | Rong, Zhao |
| Abstract: | Using the consumption of color television sets in rural China, this paper documents the existence of a type of network effect – free riding across neighbors, which reduces the propensity of non-owners to purchase. I construct a model of timing the purchase of a durable good in the presence of free riding, and test its key implications using household survey data in rural China. |
| Keywords: | Durables; Free Riding; Network Effects; Rural China |
| JEL: | D12 L68 |
| Date: | 2011–08–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:33434&r=soc |
| By: | Fabrizio Botti; Marcella Corsi |
| Abstract: | Microfinance promise to serve low-income or disadvantaged beneficiaries excluded from the formal banking sector in a financially sustainable way (thus to achieve the so called “double bottom line” of financial and social performance) built excitement around the development of a global industry. However, for a long time an anti-subsidy position embedded in the international key donor community have shown little concern of social performance data and information on beneficiaries profiles in terms of various dimension of social and financial exclusion. Until recently, most of the emphasis of microfinance advocates has been devoted to MFIs financial performance following the “win-win” proposition, according to which financial viability should be sufficient to show social impact, a view that is supported by a controversial evidence and is based on a selective understanding of conceptual facts. Nevertheless, several initiatives recently translated into the Social Performance Task Force (SPTF) attempt to explore social aspects of microfinance providing a new definition of social performance more focused on the whole process leading to a social impact. Aim of this paper is to measure European MFIs social performance according to a core set of common indicators developed by the SPTF but using data collected in 2010 by the European Microfinance Network (EMN) on a sample of 170 microfinance actors operating in 21 countries out of 27 European Union (EU) member countries, current EU candidate countries and countries belonging to the European Free Trade Area (EFTA). The reference framework followed in the current social performance analysis examines the whole process of translating MFIs mission into social impact and includes the analysis of three connected dimensions of the social performance process corresponding to different set of indicators: the intent of the MFI, the effectiveness of the internal system and activities in achieving its targets, MFI outputs and eventually its capacity to positively affect clients life and achieve social goals. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sol:wpaper:2013/97213&r=soc |