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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
| By: | Konrad B. Burchardi; Tarek A. Hassan |
| Abstract: | We use the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to show that personal relationships which individuals maintain for non-economic reasons can be an important determinant of regional economic growth. We show that West German households who have social ties to East Germany in 1989 experience a persistent rise in their personal incomes after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Moreover, the presence of these households significantly affects economic performance at the regional level: it increases the returns to entrepreneurial activity, the share of households who become entrepreneurs, and the likelihood that firms based within a given West German region invest in East Germany. As a result, West German regions which (for idiosyncratic reasons) have a high concentration of households with social ties to the East exhibit substantially higher growth in income per capita in the early 1990s. A one standard deviation rise in the share of households with social ties to East Germany in 1989 is associated with a 4.6 percentage point rise in income per capita over six years. We interpret our findings as evidence of a causal link between social ties and regional economic development. |
| Keywords: | economic development, German reuni cation, networks, social ties |
| JEL: | O11 J61 L14 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp405&r=soc |
| By: | Chen, Chia-Ching; Chiu, I-Ming; Smith, John; Yamada, Tetsuji |
| Abstract: | Although there is an increasing interest in examining the relationship between cognitive ability and economic behavior, less is known about the relationship between cognitive ability and social preferences. We investigate the relationship between strongly incentivized measures of intelligence and measures of social preferences. We have data on a series of small-stakes dictator-type decisions, known as Social Value Orientation (SVO), in addition to choices in a larger-stakes dictator game. We also have access to the grade point averages (GPA) and Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) outcomes of our subjects. We find that subjects who perform better on the math portion of the SAT are more generous in both the dictator game and the SVO measure. By contrast we find that subjects with a higher GPA are more selfish in the dictator game and more generous according to the SVO. We also find that the consistency of the subjects is related to GPA but we do not find evidence that it is related to either portion of the SAT. |
| Keywords: | dictator game; Social Value Orientation; altruism; cognitive ability |
| JEL: | D64 C91 |
| Date: | 2011–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:34438&r=soc |
| By: | Algan, Yann (Sciences Po, Paris); Cahuc, Pierre (Ecole Polytechnique, Paris); Shleifer, Andrei (Harvard University) |
| Abstract: | We use several data sets to consider the effect of teaching practices on student beliefs, as well as on organization of firms and institutions. In cross-country data, we show that teaching practices (such as copying from the board versus working on projects together) are strongly related to various dimensions of social capital, from beliefs in cooperation to institutional outcomes. We then use micro-data to investigate the influence of teaching practices on student beliefs about cooperation and students' involvement in civic life. A two-stage least square strategy provides evidence that teaching practices have an independent sizeable effect on student social capital. The relationship between teaching practices and student test performance is nonlinear. The evidence supports the idea that progressive education promotes social capital. |
| Keywords: | education, social capital, institutions |
| JEL: | I2 Z1 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6052&r=soc |
| By: | Lalanne, Marie; Seabright, Paul |
| JEL: | A14 J16 J31 J33 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ide:wpaper:25165&r=soc |
| By: | Berardi, Nicoletta; Seabright, Paul |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how networks of professional contacts contribute to the development of the careers of executives of European and US companies. We build a dynamic model of career progression in which career moves both depend upon existing networks and contribute to the development of future networks. We test the theory on an original dataset of nearly 7000 executives in over 3000 firms. We find evidence that professional networks are relevant both because valuable for the employer and because they facilitate job mobility. Our estimates of the elasticity of executives’ salaries with respect to the size of their professional networks vary between around 5% and around 20% depending on the specification, with a point estimate under our preferred specification of 6.7%. |
| Keywords: | executive compensation; labor mobility; social capital; social networks |
| JEL: | D85 J31 J62 M12 |
| Date: | 2011–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8632&r=soc |
| By: | Algan, Yann (Sciences Po, Paris); Hémet, Camille (Sciences Po, Paris); Laitin, David D. (Stanford University) |
| Abstract: | This paper demonstrates the effects of ethnic and religious diversity on the quality of public spaces. Its identification strategy relies on the exogeneity of public housing allocations in France, and thereby eliminates the bias from endogenous sorting. The paper uses micro evidence of social interactions within housing blocks from the representative French Housing survey, which allows for a detailed identification of the channels through which diversity operates. Differentiating among three channels of public goods provision, the paper finds that heterogeneity in the housing block leads to low levels of sanctions for anti-social behavior and low levels of collective action to improve housing conditions, but no losses in public safety. |
| Keywords: | fractionalization, public goods, collective action, discrimination |
| JEL: | H10 H41 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6053&r=soc |
| By: | Peter Kuhn (Department of Economics, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2127 North Hall, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9210); Marie-Claire Villeval (Université de Lyon, Lyon, F-69007, France ; CNRS, GATE Lyon St Etienne,F-69130 Ecully, France) |
| Abstract: | Are women disproportionately attracted to work environments where cooperation rather than competition is rewarded ? This paper reports the results of a real-effort experiment in which participants choose between an individual compensation scheme and a team-based payment scheme. We find that women are more likely than men to select team-based compensation in our baseline treatment, but women and men join teams with equal frequency when we add an efficiency advantage to team production. Using a simple structural discrete choice framework to reconcile these facts, we show that three elements can account for the observed patterns in the team-entry gender gap : (1) a gender gap in confidence in others (i.e. women are less pessimistic about their prospective teammates’ relative ability), (2) a greater responsiveness among men to instrumental reasons for joining teams, and (3) a greater “pure” preference for working in a team environment among women. |
| Keywords: | gender, cooperation, self-selection, confidence, experiment |
| JEL: | C91 J16 J24 J31 M5 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gat:wpaper:1127&r=soc |
| By: | Michelle S. Goeree (University of Zurich); John C. Ham (University of Maryland, Institute on Poverty, and IZA); Daniela Iorio (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and Barcelona CSE) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we explore a serious eating disorder, bulimia nervosa (BN), which afflicts a surprising number of girls in the US. We challenge the long-held belief that BN primarily affects high income White teenagers, using a unique data set on adolescent females evaluated regarding their tendencies towards bulimic behaviors independent of any diagnoses or treatment they have received. Our results reveal that African Americans are more likely to exhibit bulimic behavior than Whites; as are girls from low income families compared to middle and high income families. We use another data set to show that who is diagnosed with an eating disorder is in accord with popular beliefs, suggesting that African American and low-income girls are being under-diagnosed for BN. Our findings have important implications for public policy since they provide direction to policy makers regarding which adolescent females are most at risk for BN. Our results are robust to different model specifications and identifying assumptions. |
| Keywords: | Bulimia Nervosa, Race, Income, Education |
| JEL: | I1 |
| Date: | 2011–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2011-034&r=soc |