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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
| By: | Sturgis, Patrick; Patulny, Roger; Allum, Nick; Buscha, Franz |
| Abstract: | Social, or generalized, trust refers to beliefs that people hold about how other people in society will in general act towards them. Can people in general be trusted? Or must one be careful in dealing with people? Research on the antecedents of social trust has typically relied on cross-sectional regression estimators to evaluate putative causes. Our contention is that much of this research over-estimates the importance of many of these causes because of the failure to account for unmeasured confounding influences. In this paper we use longitudinal data assess the causal status of a particularly prominent mooted cause of trust: the degree to which individuals are socially integrated via formal membership of civic organisations and through friendship networks. We fit a range of regression estimators to repeated measures data from the UK for the period 1998 to 2008. Our results show little support for the widely held view that social trust results from integration within social networks, of either a formal or an informal nature. |
| Date: | 2012–09–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ese:iserwp:2012-19&r=soc |
| By: | Martin Ljunge (University of Copenhagen and SITE) |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the influence of trust on self-assessed health. Second generation immigrants in a broad set of European countries with ancestry from across the world are studied. There is a significant positive effect of trust on selfassessed health. Health has both intrinsic and instrumental value. The finding provides evidence for one mechanism through which trust creates desirable outcomes. Individuals with high trust feel healthier. As health may promote a more productive life, it may be one channel through which trust increases national income. The results suggest policy put more emphasis on promoting social trust. |
| Keywords: | trust; self-assessed health; subjective health; intergenerational transmission; cultural transmission |
| JEL: | I12 D13 D83 Z13 |
| Date: | 2012–08–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kuiedp:1212&r=soc |
| By: | Nguyen, Quang (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore); Villeval, Marie Claire (CNRS, GATE); Xu, Hui (CNRS, GATE) |
| Abstract: | We study the influence of risk and time preferences on trust and trustworthiness by conducting a field experiment in Vietnamese villages and by estimating the parameters of the Cumulative Prospect Theory and of quasi-hyperbolic time preferences. We find that while probability sensitivity or risk aversion do not affect trust, loss aversion influences trust indirectly by lowering the expectations of return. Also, more risk averse and less present biased participants are found to be trustworthier. The experience of receiving remittances influences behavior and a longer exposure to a collectivist economy tend to reduce trust and trustworthiness. |
| Keywords: | trust, trustworthiness, risk preferences, time preferences, Cumulative Prospect Theory, Vietnam, field experiment |
| JEL: | C91 C93 D81 D90 O10 O53 |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6851&r=soc |
| By: | Sato, Hiroshi; Ding, Sai |
| Abstract: | Using a 2006 household survey from the Ningxia Hui autonomous region in China, this paper examines two aspects of the correlation between ethnicity and income: namely, differences in the returns to human capital and the effects of ethnicity- and religion-related social capital. The findings indicate ethnic disparity in the returns to human capital across rural and urban areas. In rural areas, the returns to human capital for the Hui workforce differ according to the place of economic activity (i.e. local employment or migration), whereas no ethnic disparity is found for the urban workforce. We also find that ethnicity- and religion-related social capital plays a significant role among the Hui in rural areas where the level of interethnic social interactions is lower. We use this to suggest that Muslim-oriented attitudes toward trust in social networks of rural Hui households positively and interactively affect income through ethnically open trust attitudes. |
| Keywords: | ethnic minorities, Hui, household and personal income, China |
| JEL: | J15 D31 |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:ccesdp:46&r=soc |
| By: | Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde (IJN - Institut Jean-Nicod - CNRS : UMR8129 - Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris - ENS Paris - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), LEM - Laboratoire d'Économie Moderne - Université Paris II - Panthéon-Assas : EA4442); Anne Corcos François Pannequin (LEM - Laboratoire d'Économie Moderne - Université Paris II - Panthéon-Assas : EA4442) |
| Abstract: | In this article, we focus on two types of "aversion" which we deem essential aspects of the notion of trust: betrayal aversion (social) and ambiguity aversion (a special case of aversion to uncertainty). Based on trust-games studies in experimental economics and neuroeconomics, our main goal is to assess the conceptual, behavioral and neurobiological connections between betrayal and ambiguity aversions. From a social and individual psychological point of view the bottom line of our trusting behavior could be our general aversion to ambiguous signals. We approach social trust in the terms of a phenomenon based on uncertainty aversion.Specifically, a reduction of the perceived uncertainty of a social interaction tends to build up a trusting climate conducive to trade by decreasing betrayal aversion.We hypothesize that betrayal aversion and ambiguity aversion bear such a negative correlation. Focusing on this potential negative correlation our approach clearly differs from more positive accounts of trust centred on altruism. |
| Keywords: | trust game - betrayal aversion - ambiguity aversion - neuroeconomics |
| Date: | 2012–11–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:ijn_00734564&r=soc |
| By: | Montizaan, Raymond (ROA, Maastricht University); Vendrik, Maarten (Maastricht University) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the effects of social comparisons accompanying a substantial reform of the Dutch pension system on the job satisfaction of workers who are close to retirement. The reform implies that public sector workers born on January 1, 1950, or later face a substantial reduction in their pension rights, while workers born before this threshold date can still retire under the old, more generous rules. Using unique matched survey and administrative panel data on male public sector workers born in 1949 and 1950, we find strong and persistent effects on job satisfaction that are sizable compared to income effects on well-being. The drop in satisfaction is strongly affected by social comparisons with colleagues. Treated workers are less affected by the reform when the treatment group is larger in the organization where they are employed. Moreover, the social comparison effect is especially prevalent in organizations that stimulate their employees to work in teams. We also find evidence that workers compare their own replacement rate with the average replacement of comparable individuals in their organization, but the major part of the social comparison effect is non-monetary. |
| Keywords: | social comparison, well-being, retirement |
| JEL: | D63 D1 I3 J26 |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6863&r=soc |
| By: | Natalia Montinari; Antonio Nicolo; Regine Oexl |
| Abstract: | We report evidence from an experiment where a principal chooses an agent out of two to perform a task for a fixed compensation. The principal's payoff depends on the agent's ex-ante ability and on a non-contractible effort that the agent has to exert once employed. We find that a significant share of principals select the mediocre agent (i.e. the one with the lower ex-ante ability). When the principal is allowed to send a message, mediocre agents exert more effort than agents with higher ability, and principals who choose mediocre agents on average have a larger payoff than principals who select agents with higher ability. This difference in effort overcompensates the difference in ability. Mediocre agents reciprocate more than agents who have ex-ante higher ability when the principals are able to make them feeling indebted. |
| Keywords: | reciprocity, communication, incentives, mediocrity |
| JEL: | C9 |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inn:wpaper:2012-19&r=soc |
| By: | Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde (IJN - Institut Jean-Nicod - CNRS : UMR8129 - Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris - ENS Paris - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), LEM - Laboratoire d'Économie Moderne - Université Paris II - Panthéon-Assas : EA4442); Anne Corcos (LEM - Laboratoire d'Économie Moderne - Université Paris II - Panthéon-Assas : EA4442); François Pannequin (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Paris I - Panthéon Sorbonne, ENS Cachan - Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan - École normale supérieure de Cachan - ENS Cachan) |
| Abstract: | According to an early approach, the decision to trust in the one-shot anonymous trust game is intuitively tantamount to a risky decision: the willingness to bet on the reciprocation of my investment. In a seminal study, Eckel and Wilson (2004) explored the correlation between risk attitudes (as elicited through a Holt and Laury mechanism) and the behavior of investors in the trust game. They found no correlation: trust decision cannot be viewed as a risky decision. However, since the probabilities of possible returns are unknown, we argue that trust behavior may correlate more specifically with ambiguity aversion rather than with risk aversion. We therefore modified Eckel and Wilson's experimental procedure in order to investigate the question as to whether trust is an ambiguous decision. We extended Holt and Laury switching-point elicitation mechanism between risky lotteries to ambiguous lotteries as Chrakravarty and Roy (2009) did. We then ran an experimental session including a standard one shot anonymous trust game (OSG). We found significant negative correlations between aversion to ambiguity and behavior in OSG. This result is a plea in favor of a decision-theoretical analogy between choices in ambiguous lotteries and trust-games. |
| Keywords: | trust, risk aversion, ambiguity |
| Date: | 2012–08–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:ijn_00734563&r=soc |
| By: | Stark, Oded; Dorn, Agnieszka |
| Abstract: | Strong ties with the home country and with the host country can coexist. An altruistic migrant who sends remittances to his family back home assimilates more the more altruistic he is, and also more than a non-remitting migrant. |
| Keywords: | Assimilation of migrants, Acculturation identity, Links with the home country, Altruism, Remittances, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Labor and Human Capital, D01, D13, D64, F22, F24, |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:ubzefd:133689&r=soc |
| By: | Dahl, Gordon B. (Department of Economics, UC San Diego); Løken, Katrine V. (Department of Economics, University of Bergen); Mogstad, Magne (Department of Economics, University College London) |
| Abstract: | The influence of peers could play an important role in the take up of social programs. However, estimating peer effects has proven challenging given the problems of reflection, correlated unobservables, and endogenous group membership. We overcome these identification issues in the context of paid paternity leave in Norway using a regression discontinuity design. In an attempt to promote gender equality, a reform made fathers of children born after April 1, 1993 in Norway eligible for one month of governmental paid paternity leave. Fathers of children born before this cutoff were not eligible. There is a sharp increase in fathers taking paternity leave immediately after the reform, with take up rising from 3% to 35%. While this quasi-random variation changed the cost of paternity leave for some fathers and not others, it did not directly affect the cost for the father’s coworkers or brothers. Therefore, any effect on the coworker or brother can be attributed to the influence of the peer father in their network. Our key findings on peer effects are four-fold. First, we find strong evidence for substantial peer effects of program participation in both workplace and family networks. Coworkers and brothers are 11 and 15 percentage points, respectively, more likely to take paternity leave if their peer father was induced to take up leave by the reform. Second, the most likely mechanism is information transmission about costs and benefits, including increased knowledge of how an employer will react. Third, there is essential heterogeneity in the size of the peer effect depending on the strength of ties between peers, highlighting the importance of duration, intensity, and frequency of social interactions. Fourth, the estimated peer effect gets amplified over time, with each subsequent birth exhibiting a snowball effect as the original peer father’s influence cascades through a firm. Our findings demonstrate that peer effects can lead to long-run equilibrium participation rates which are substantially higher than would otherwise be expected. |
| Keywords: | Program Participation; Social Interactions |
| JEL: | H53 I38 J13 |
| Date: | 2012–09–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:bergec:2012_012&r=soc |
| By: | Bernd Irlenbusch (University of Cologne); Janna Ter Meer (University of Cologne) |
| Abstract: | Our study takes an individual perspective on receiver credulity in a public good setting with deceptive messages. In a laboratory experiment, subjects play a public good game with punishment in which feedback on actual contributions is obscured. Instead, subjects can communicate what they have contributed through a post-hoc announcement mechanism. Using subject’s social value orientation, we show that those highest on the measure are too optimistic towards announcements of their fellow group members. This, in turn, influences payoff-relevant decisions: those high on social value orientation contribute more to the public good and punish their fellow group members less. |
| Keywords: | public goods, punishment, lying, receiver credulity |
| JEL: | C92 D03 H41 D02 |
| Date: | 2012–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgr:cgsser:03-11&r=soc |
| By: | Epstein, Gil S. (Bar-Ilan University) |
| Abstract: | A model is set up where migrants must choose a level of social traits and consumption of ethnic goods. As the consumption level of ethnic goods increases, the migrants become ever more different to the local population and are less assimilated. Less assimilation affects the reaction of the local population to the migrants and their willingness to accept the newcomers. This social phenomenon and affects wages and unemployment. We show that the growth in the unemployment and social benefits of legal migrants increases the consumption of ethnic goods, thus creating a trap wherein the willingness of the local population to accept the migrants into the economy decreases. This process also increases the probability of the migrants' dependence on the welfare state. On the other hand, illegal migrants could play an important role in the assimilation of the legal migrants. |
| Keywords: | welfare state, social benefits, ethnic goods, social trait, assimilation, unemployment |
| JEL: | F22 O15 D6 |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6850&r=soc |
| By: | Rieck, Karsten Marshall Elseth (Department of Economics, University of Bergen); Vaage, Kjell (Department of Economics, University of Bergen) |
| Abstract: | We investigate whether a worker’s sickness absence is affected by her colleagues’ absences from the workplace. The analysis is based on unique matched employer-employee data for Norwegian schoolteachers for the period 2001 to 2006 with information on different types of absences and multiple teacher and school characteristics. Using different approaches where methodological problems such as the reflection problem and intra-group correlation are mitigated, we look for evidence of social interaction effects. Our results show that the significance of the social interaction effects critically depends on our ability to control for unobserved school characteristics. |
| Keywords: | Social interaction; peer effects; sickness absence |
| JEL: | C23 C31 H55 I38 J22 |
| Date: | 2012–08–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:bergec:2012_011&r=soc |
| By: | Knutsson, Mikael (Dept of Psychology, University of Gothenburg); Martinsson, Peter (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Wollbrant, Conny (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | We use a natural field experiment to investigate the hypothesis that generosity is partly involuntary, by examining whether individuals tend to avoid opportunities to act generously. In Sweden, new recycling machines for bottles and cans with an option of donating the returned deposit to charity were gradually introduced in one of the largest store chains. We find a substantial decline in recycling the month these new machines were introduced and a further decline in the following months. These results indicate that individuals avoid opportunities to act generously and corroborate findings from both lab and field studies supporting the claim that generous behavior is partly involuntary |
| Keywords: | Generosity; Donations; Natural field experiment; Avoidance behavior |
| JEL: | C93 D01 D03 D64 |
| Date: | 2012–09–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0542&r=soc |
| By: | Ksenia Gatskova; Maxim Gatskov |
| Abstract: | This study explores the determinants of the low level of civic engagement in Ukraine. Applying the methodological framework of analytical sociology we consider different social mechanisms that explain the weakness of Ukrainian civil society. First, we discuss how the political system and economic performance of the country shape beliefs, values and motives of people by creating the context for their actions. Second, we focus on different aspects of people’s experience during the Soviet times to rule out a number of hypotheses concerning unwillingness of citizens to join formal voluntary organizations. Using the results of the individual-level data analysis we show that the specific features of the Homo Sovieticus “socio-cultural type”, such as passivity towards management of the own life, absence of political identification, and reliance on informal networks affect negatively the propensity of people to be members of civic organizations. These effects are complemented by the negative impact of post-Soviet transformation disappointment and subjective perception of low social status. Based on the results of analyses we formulate suggestions oncerning possible ways to foster the civil society development in Ukraine. |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ost:wpaper:323&r=soc |