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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
| By: | Büchner Charlotte; Cörvers Frank; Traag Tanja; Velden Rolf van der (METEOR) |
| Abstract: | This study analyzes four different transmission mechanisms, through which father’s earnings affectson’s earnings: the educational attainment, cognitive skills, the cultural capital of the familyand the social capital in the neighborhood. Using a unique data set that combines panel data froma birth cohort with earnings data from a large nationwide income survey and national tax files,our findings show that cognitive skills and schooling of the son account for 50% of the father-sonearnings elasticity. Education by far accounts for the largest part, while cognitive skills mainlywork indirectly through educational attainment. Social capital of the neighborhood and culturalcapital of the parents account for an additional 6% of the intergeneration income persistence.From these two additional mechanisms, social capital appears to play a stronger role than thecultural capital of the parents. This means that 44% of the intergenerational persistence is dueto other unobserved characteristics for example personality traits or spillover effects of familyassets. |
| Keywords: | education, training and the labour market; |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:umamet:2012028&r=soc |
| By: | P. Buonanno; R. Durante; G. Prarolo; P. Vanin |
| Abstract: | This study explains the emergence of the Sicilian mafia in the XIX century as the product of the interaction between natural resource abundance and weak institutions. We advance the hypothesis that the mafia emerged after the collapse of the Bourbon Kingdom in a context characterized by a severe lack of state property-right enforcement in response to the rising demand for the protection of sulfur - Sicily's most valuable export commodity - whose demand in the international markets was soaring at the time. We test this hypothesis combining data on the early presence of the mafia and on the distribution of sulfur reserves across Sicilian municipalities and find evidence of a positive and significant effect of sulphur availability on mafia's diffusion. These results remain unchanged when including department fixed-effects and various geographical and historical controls, when controlling for spatial correlation, and when comparing pairs of neighboring municipalities with and without sulfur. |
| JEL: | K42 N33 N54 O13 O43 |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp844&r=soc |
| By: | Jonas Debrulle |
| Abstract: | This study investigates how business owner human and social capital affect start-up absorptive capacity under different environmental conditions. From our analysis of a sample of 199 Flemish start-ups, we observe that the owner’s start-up experience and bridging social capital are positively and significantly related to the new venture’s ability to acquire, assimilate and exploit external information. In addition, our findings reveal a positive but decreasing effect of owner specific human capital as a function of environmental turbulence. Furthermore, we find that management experience significantly stimulates start-up absorptive capacity within highly dynamic environments, whereas it hinders it within stable environments. Finally, implications and opportunities for future research are provided. |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ete:vivwps:30&r=soc |
| By: | Katherine Casey; Rachel Glennerster; Edward Miguel |
| Abstract: | While its recent history of civil war, chronic poverty and corrupt governance would cause many to dismiss Sierra Leone as a hopeless case, the country's economic and political performance over the last decade has defied expectations. We examine how several factors—including the legacy of war, ethnic diversity, decentralization and community-driven development (CDD)—have shaped local institutions and national political dynamics. The story that emerges is a nuanced one: war does not necessarily destroy the capacity for local collective action; ethnicity affects residential choice, but does not impede local public goods provision; while politics remain heavily ethnic, voters are willing to cross ethnic boundaries when they have better information about candidates; decentralization can work even where capacity is limited, although the results are mixed; and for all of its promise, CDD does not appear to transform local institutions nor social norms. All of these findings are somewhat “unexpected,” but they are quite positive in signaling that even one of the world’s poorest, most violent and ethnically diverse societies can overcome major challenges and progress towards meaningful economic and political development. |
| JEL: | F35 H41 O40 |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18368&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 consequential measures of cognitive ability 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 SAT (formerly referred to as the Scholastic Aptitude Test) 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 some evidence that the subjects with higher GPA and higher SAT outcomes offer more consistent responses. Our results involving GPA and social preferences complement previous work which employ measures of cognitive ability which are sensitive to the intrinsic motivation of the subject. Our results involving SAT scores are without precedent in the literature and suggest that measures of cognitive ability, which are less sensitive to the intrinsic motivation of the subject, are positively related to generosity. |
| Keywords: | dictator game; Social Value Orientation; altruism; intelligence |
| JEL: | D64 C91 |
| Date: | 2012–09–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:41078&r=soc |
| By: | Cappelen, Alexander W. (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Sørensen, Erik Ø. (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Tungodden, Bertil (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration) |
| Abstract: | The paper reports from an experiment studying how the aversion to lying is affected by non-economic dimensions of the choice situation. Specifically, we study whether people are more or less likely to lie when the content of the lie is personal, when they base decisions on intuition, and when they are in a market context. We also study how aversion to lying depends on personal characteristics, including age, gender, cognitive ability, personality and social preferences. Our main finding is that non-economic aspects of the choice situation are crucial in understanding aversion to lying. In particular, we find that people are less likely to lie when the content of the message is personal. We also find large effects from priming the participants to rely on intuition, but, interestingly, in this case the effect only applies to males. Finally, we find that people who are highly motivated by social preferences are more averse to lying, but there is no significant relationship between lying behavior and other personal characteristics. |
| Keywords: | Experiment; lying; personal characteristics |
| JEL: | D63 |
| Date: | 2012–08–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2012_017&r=soc |
| By: | Mika Kortelainen; Tuukka Saarimaa |
| Abstract: | Homeownership is heavily subsidized in many countries mainly through the tax code. The adverse effects of lenient tax treatment of owner-occupied housing on economic efficiency and growth are large and well documented in the economics literature. The main argument in favor of subsidizing owner-occupied housing is that it creates positive externalities that offset these adverse effects. This paper tests whether homeowners create positive externalities to their immediate neighborhood that capitalize into housing prices in multi-storey buildings. Using semiparametric hedonic regressions with and without instrumental variables we find no evidence of positive externalities from neighborhood homeownership rate. This result is robust to relaxing the identification assumptions of our instrument using a recently developed set identification method. Our results suggest that the adverse efficiency effects of lenient tax treatment of owneroccupied housing are not offset by positive externalities. |
| Keywords: | Homeownership, neighborhood effects, partial linear model, set identification |
| JEL: | R21 D62 |
| Date: | 2012–09–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fer:wpaper:36&r=soc |
| By: | Mirco Tonin; Michael Vlassopoulos |
| Abstract: | Contributing to a social cause can be an important driver for workers in the public and non-profit sector as well as in firms that engage in Corporate Social Responsibility activities. This paper compares the effectiveness of social incentives to financial incentives using an online real effort experiment. We find that social incentives lead to a 20% rise in productivity, regardless of their form (lump sum or related to performance) or strength. When subjects can choose the mix of incentives half sacrifice some of their private compensation to increase social compensation, with women more likely than men. Furthermore, social incentives do not attract less productive subjects, nor subjects that respond more to exogenously imposed social incentives. Our calculations suggest that a dollar spent on social incentives is equivalent to increasing private compensation by at least half a dollar. |
| Date: | 2012–07–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ceu:econwp:2012_12&r=soc |
| By: | Traag Tanja; Lubbers Miranda Jessica; Velden Rolf van der (METEOR) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we investigate if peer relations affect a student’s risk of early school-leaving. Weuse the sociometric data collection from the Dutch “Secondary Education Pupil Cohort 1999” toidentify peer relations in a sample of almost 20,000 students in the first grade of secondaryeducation (mean age 13). This information is matched to data on educational attainment from 1999to 2010 for these students, to measure later early school-leaving by both the focal students aswell as their peers. Our results show that both being friends with future early school-leavers aswell as popularity among future early school-leavers increases the risk of students to be earlyschool-leavers later in their educational career while other characteristics of the peer groupsuch as gender composition, ethnic composition, average (non)cognitive skills and averagesocioeconomic background have no effects on the risk of early school-leaving. And whilecharacteristics like gender, ethnicity and socio-economic background play an important role inpeer selection, the future dropout status does not have a major impact on peer selection. |
| Keywords: | education, training and the labour market; |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:umamet:2012023&r=soc |
| By: | Noussair, C.N.; Stoop, J.T.R. (Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | Abstract: We report results from three well-known experimental paradigms, where we use time, rather than money, as the salient component of subjects’ incentives. The three experiments, commonly employed to study social preferences, are the dictator game, the ultimatum game and the trust game. All subjects in a session earn the same participation fee, but their choices affect the time at which they are permitted to leave the laboratory, with decisions typically associated with greater own payoff translating into an earlier departure. The modal proposal in both the dictator and ultimatum games is an equal split of the waiting time. In the trust game, there is substantial trust and reciprocity. Overall, social preferences are evident in time allocation decisions. Received laboratory results from dictator, ultimatum, and trust games are robust to the change in reward medium, though there is some suggestive evidence that decisions are even more prosocial with respect to time than money. |
| Keywords: | dictator game;ultimatum game;trust game;time. |
| JEL: | C70 C91 D63 D64 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:kubcen:2012068&r=soc |
| By: | Tom Broekel |
| Abstract: | Despite the growing number of studies, still little is known about how network structures and proximity relations between linked actors evolve over time. Arguments are put forward for the existence of co-evolution dynamics between different types of proximity configurations within networks. An empirical investigation tests these arguments using information on the development of 280 networks. Amongst others, it is shown that institutional and cognitive proximity configurations coevolve in the short as well as in the long-run. While institutional and social proximity configurations are only related in the long run. Moreover, temporal auto-correlation dynamics characterizes the development of cognitive proximity configurations. |
| Keywords: | proximities, co-evolution, R&D subsidies, knowledge networks, network evolution |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1217&r=soc |