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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
| By: | Elinder, Mikael (Department of Economics); Erixson, Oscar (Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Since the sinking of the Titanic, there has been a widespread belief that the social norm of ‘women and children first’ gives women a survival advantage over men in maritime disasters, and that captains and crew give priority to passengers. We analyze a database of 18 maritime disasters spanning three centuries, covering the fate of over 15,000 individuals of more than 30 nationalities. Our results provide a new picture of maritime disasters. Women have a distinct survival disadvantage compared to men. Captains and crew survive at a significantly higher rate than passengers. We also find that the captain has the power to enforce normative behavior, that the gender gap in survival rates has declined, that women have a larger disadvantage in British shipwrecks, and that there seems to be no association between duration of a disaster and the impact of social norms. Taken together, our findings show that behavior in life-and-death situation is best captured by the expression ‘Every man for himself’. |
| Keywords: | Social norms; Disaster; Women and children first; Mortality; High stakes |
| JEL: | C70 D63 D81 J16 |
| Date: | 2012–04–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uunewp:2012_008&r=soc |
| By: | Sawada, Yasuyuki; Ishii, Takaharu |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we investigate the role of a School Management Committee (COGES) in facili- tating social capital among community members and teachers. We employ unique data from Burkina Faso, where the COGES project was recently introduced. To determine the individual level of social capital of each community member and teacher, we conduct public goods games, one of the standard artefactual field experiments, with monetary rewards. Using in- strumental variable and propensity score matching methods, we obtain several findings. First, we find that the COGES project increases the level of social capital significantly. This finding is robust across different econometric specifications and methodologies. According to our point estimates, the amount of voluntary contribution to public goods increases by 16% to 27%. Second, the social capital facilitation effect of COGES varies based on the characteristics of the participant: while those who are more educated tended to have a lower level of social capital, Muslims have a higher level of social capital with COGES. Third, our qualitative re- sults are maintained if we use the subjective assessment data of social capital based on the General Social Survey (GSS) questions. |
| Keywords: | School Management Committee (COGES) , community participation , social capital , Burkina Faso , field experiments public goods game |
| Date: | 2012–03–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jic:wpaper:42&r=soc |
| By: | Markussen, Simen (Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research); Røed, Knut (Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | Based on administrative panel data from Norway, we examine how social insurance dependency spreads within neighborhoods, families, ethnic minorities, and among former schoolmates. We use a fixed effects methodology that accounts for endogenous group formation, contextual interactions, and time-constant as well as time-varying confounders. We report evidence that social insurance dependency is contagious. The estimated network effects are both quantitatively and statistically significant, and they rise rapidly with "relational closeness" in a way that establishes endogenous social interaction as a central causal mechanism. Social interactions do not cross ethnic borders. |
| Keywords: | social interaction, social multiplier, work norms, peer effects |
| JEL: | C31 H55 I38 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6446&r=soc |
| By: | Fehrler, Sebastian (University of Zurich); Kosfeld, Michael (Goethe University Frankfurt) |
| Abstract: | Do employees work harder if their job has the right mission? In a laboratory labor market experiment, we test whether subjects provide higher effort if they can choose the mission of their job. We observe that subjects do not provide higher effort than in a control treatment. Surprised by this finding, we run a second experiment in which subjects can choose whether they want to work on a job with their preferred mission or not. A subgroup of agents (roughly one third) is willing to do so even if this option is more costly than choosing the alternative job. Moreover, we find that these subjects provide substantially higher effort. These results suggest that relatively few workers can be motivated by missions and that selection into mission-oriented organizations is important to explain empirical findings of lower wages and high motivation in the latter. |
| Keywords: | motivation, effort provision, contract choice, sorting, lab experiment |
| JEL: | C92 J33 M52 |
| Date: | 2012–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6460&r=soc |
| By: | John E. Roemer |
| Date: | 2012–04–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cla:levarc:786969000000000407&r=soc |
| By: | Christoph Engel (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn); Lilia Zhurakhovska (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn) |
| Abstract: | If two players of a simultaneous symmetric one-shot prisoner’s dilemma hold standard preferences, the fact that choosing the cooperative move imposes harm on a passive outsider is immaterial. Yet if participants hold social preferences, one might think that they are reticent to impose harm on the outsider. This is not what we find, however severe the externality. A within-subjects measure of reticence to impose harm does not explain cooperation. But the externality makes participants more pessimistic. However conditional on their beliefs participants are more, not less cooperative if cooperation entails harm on an outsider, again however severe the externality. |
| Keywords: | externality, prisoner’s dilemma, Modified Dictator Game, Beliefs |
| JEL: | C72 C91 D03 H23 |
| Date: | 2012–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpg:wpaper:2012_02&r=soc |
| By: | Shoji, Masahiro; Aoyagi, Keitaro; Kasahara, Ryuji; Sawada, Yasuyuki |
| Abstract: | This study tests alternative hypotheses concerning the motivations behind the participation by rural households in community work. Using unique data from natural and field experiments in southern Sri Lanka, where irrigated fields have been allocated to farmers by government lottery, we compare quantitatively five possible motives behind community participation: public goods investment, general social capital accumulation, production network formation, risk sharing network formation, and pure altruism. Our empirical results show that community participation patterns are consistent with social capital accumulation behavior to form risk sharing networks. Only a few studies have investigated empirically the process of social capital formation, and our analysis fills the gap in the literature. Our findings also suggest the possibility of a poverty trap: facing negative shocks, poor households may have difficulty in finding time for social capital accumulation and risk sharing network formation; this, in turn, may cause them to become more vulnerable and even poorer. |
| Keywords: | Community participation , Social capital , Network formation , Risk sharing |
| Date: | 2010–06–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jic:wpaper:16&r=soc |
| By: | Aida, Takeshi |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effect of social capital between irrigation canal head-enders and tail-enders on their water allocation problem. Although social capital is considered to be an instrument for common pool resource management, a consensus has not been reached on its effect among heterogeneous players. In irrigation management, the water allocation problem between head-enders and tail-enders is one of these serious problems. Using unique natural and artefactual field experiment data as well as general household survey data collected by JICA, this study finds that social capital, especially trust toward their tail-enders, has a significantly positive effect on satisfaction with water usage among head-enders. Considering the fact that the incentive structure of irrigation water allocation for head-enders closely resembles that in the dictator and trust games, this finding also supports the validity of experimentally measured social capital. In addition, this study deals with the simultaneity bias between satisfaction level and experimentally measured social capital, and finds that OLS estimators are downward biased, which is consistent with the hypothesis that scarcity of resources enhances the level of social capital. |
| Keywords: | social capital , irrigation , field experiment , head-enders and tail-enders |
| Date: | 2011–08–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jic:wpaper:33&r=soc |
| By: | Roman Horváth (Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic) |
| Abstract: | We examine the effect of generalized trust on long-term economic growth. Unlike in previous studies, we use Bayesian model averaging to deal rigorously with model uncertainty and attendant omitted variable bias. In addition, we address endogeneity and assess whether the effect of trust on growth is causal. Examining more than forty regressors for nearly fifty countries, we show that trust exerts a positive effect on long-term growth and, based on the posterior inclusion probabilities, suggest that trust is an important driver of long-term growth. Our results also show that trust is key for growth in countries with a weak rule of law. |
| Keywords: | trust, economic growth, Bayesian model averaging |
| JEL: | O43 O10 Z13 |
| Date: | 2012–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fau:wpaper:wp2012_09&r=soc |
| By: | Seth Richards-Shubik (H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University) |
| Abstract: | Most work on social interactions studies a single, composite effect of interactions within a group. Yet in the case of sexual initiation, there are two distinct social mechanisms - peer-group norms and partner availability with separate effects and different potential interventions. Here I develop an equilibrium search and matching model for first sexual partners that specifies distinct roles for these two mechanisms as part of demand and supply. I estimate the model using a national sample of high school students, with data over time on individual virginity status. The results indicate that peer-group norms have a large effect on the timing of sexual initiation for both boys and girls. Changes in opposite-gender search behavior (i.e., partner availability) also have a large impact on initiation rates for boys, but not for girls. The existence of a composite effect of social interactions is also confirmed using a standard method: instrumental variables estimation of linear regressions. |
| Keywords: | social interaction models, mechanisms, sexual activity, youth, structural estimation |
| JEL: | C31 C33 J13 |
| Date: | 2012–01–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pen:papers:12-015&r=soc |