|
on Social Norms and Social Capital |
| By: | Omar McDoom (London School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Although popularly perceived as a positive force, social capital may also produce socially undesirable outcomes. Drawing on Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, this article shows that participation in its violence was partly determined by the features of individuals’ social networks. Perpetrators possessed larger networks in general and more connections to other perpetrators in particular. The quality as well as quantity of connections also mattered. Strong ties generally, and kinship and neighborly ties specifically, were strong predictors of participation. In contrast, possession of countervailing ties to nonparticipants was not significant. In explaining these findings, I suggest participants’ networks fulfilled functions of information diffusion, social influence, and behavioral regulation. The findings point to the importance of social structure and suggest that relational data should complement individual attribute data in predicting participation in collective violence. |
| Date: | 2013–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hic:wpaper:140&r=soc |
| By: | Cristina Bodea; Adrienne LeBas |
| Abstract: | How do social contracts come into being? This paper argues that norm adoption plays an important and neglected role in this process. Using novel data from urban Nigeria, we examine why individuals adopt norms favoring a citizen obligation to pay tax where state enforcement is weak. We find that public goods delivery by the state produces the willingness to pay tax, but community characteristics also have a strong and independent effect on both social contract norms and actual tax payment. Individuals are less likely to adopt pro-tax norms if they have access to community provision of security and other services. In conflict-prone communities, where “self-help” provision of club goods is less effective, individuals are more likely to adopt social contract norms. Finally, we show that social contract norms substantially boost tax payment. This paper has broad implications for literatures on state formation, taxation, clientelism, and public goods provision. |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2013/02&r=soc |
| By: | Daron Acemoglu; James A. Robinson; Ragnar Torvik |
| Abstract: | Voters often dismantle constitutional checks and balances on the executive. If such checks and balances limit presidential abuses of power and rents, why do voters support their removal? We argue that by reducing politician rents, checks and balances also make it cheaper to bribe or in?uence politicians through non-electoral means. In weakly-institutionalized polities where such non-electoral in?uences, particularly by the better organized elite, are a major concern, voters may prefer a political system without checks and balances as a way of insulating politicians from these in?uences. When they do so, they are e?ectively accepting a certain amount of politician (presidential) rents in return for redistribution. We show that checks and balances are less likely to emerge when the elite is better organized and is more likely to be able to in?uence or bribe politicians, and when inequality and potential taxes are high (which makes redistribution more valuable to the majority). We also provide case study evidence from Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela and econometric evidence on voter attitudes from a Latin American survey consistent with the model. |
| Keywords: | corruption, checks and balances, political economy, redistribution, separation of powers, taxes |
| JEL: | H1 O17 P48 |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bny:wpaper:0010&r=soc |
| By: | Daron Acemoglu; James A. Robinson; Ragnar Torvik |
| Abstract: | In this online appendix we extend the basic model in the paper in several directions, discuss the robustness of the results, and moreover what new mechanisms our extensions implies as compared to the ones in the basic model. |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bny:wpaper:0011&r=soc |
| By: | Sebastian J. Goerg; Jan Meise; Gari Walkowitz; Eyal Winter |
| Abstract: | We investigate strategic interactions of Israelis and Palestinians within a controlled laboratory experiment. In our first treatment we retrieve cooperation benchmarks prevailing within both subject pools. Then we measure cooperation levels and associated beliefs between Israelis and Palestinians. Treatment three assesses the influence of pre-play face-to-face encounter on cooperative behavior. Our findings are: The degree of expected and actual cooperation within the Palestinian subject pool is significantly higher as compared to the respective levels found in Israel. In line with previous findings, cooperation decreases if subjects are paired with subjects from the other subject pool. Previously detected subject pool differences are not offset. The drop in inter-subject pool cooperation can be outweighed by the introducing of face-to-face communication, which dramatically increases the cooperation rates. The differences in contributions between Palestinians and Israelis are associated with differences in subjects' beliefs. Face-to-face encounter increases and balances beliefs and therefore enhances cooperation. |
| Keywords: | Bargaining, Belief-structure, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, International Cooperation, Prisoner's Dilemma |
| JEL: | A13 C72 C91 F51 |
| Date: | 2013–01–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgr:cgsser:04-01&r=soc |
| By: | Stefano DellaVigna; John A. List; Ulrike Malmendier; Gautam Rao |
| Abstract: | Do men and women have different social preferences? Previous findings are contradictory. We provide a potential explanation using evidence from a field experiment. In a door-to-door solicitation, men and women are equally generous, but women become less generous when it becomes easy to avoid the solicitor. Our structural estimates of the social preference parameters suggest an explanation: women are more likely to be on the margin of giving, partly because of a less dispersed distribution of altruism. We find similar results for the willingness to complete an unpaid survey: women are more likely to be on the margin of participation. |
| JEL: | C93 D64 H4 |
| Date: | 2013–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18748&r=soc |
| By: | Timo Hiller |
| Abstract: | I propose a game of signed network formation, where agents make friends to coerce payoffs from enemies with fewer friends. The model accounts for the interplay between friendship and enmity. Nash equilibrium configurations are such that, either everyone is friends with everyone, or agents can be partitioned into sets of different size, where agents within the same set are friends and agents in different sets are enemies. These results mirror findings of a large body of work on signed networks in sociology, social psychology, international relations and applied physics. |
| Keywords: | Network Formation, Structural Balance, Alliances, Contest Success Function |
| JEL: | D74 D85 |
| Date: | 2012–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:uobdis:12/629&r=soc |
| By: | Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock (VU University Amsterdam); Ming Ming Chiu (University at Buffalo – SUNY); Zhike Lei (ESMT European School of Management and Technology); Simone Kauffeld (Technische Universität Braunschweig) |
| Abstract: | Positivity in the workplace has been heralded to produce individual, social and organizational benefits. Although we know more about how positivity “broadens” and “builds” within individuals, little research has explicitly studied how positivity naturally occurs and dynamically unfolds in the flow of team interactions. This study aims to address this research gap by integrating existing knowledge on team processes with the notions of emotional cycles and “energy-in-conversation.” We observed meeting interactions of 43 frontline problem solving teams and analyzed a sample of 43,139 coded individual utterances from these teams. Using statistical discourse analysis (SDA) to model multi-level dynamics over time, we found that early positive and solution-focused interactions could send teams down a path of eliciting more “upward spirals”, thus more positivity. We also found that speaker switches added more positivity to team interactions both directly and by strengthening the positive effects of early positive and solution-focused interactions on subsequent positivity occurring in team interactions. Additionally and importantly, we found that overall positivity has positive implications for team performance. We discuss both theoretical and managerial implications of our findings. |
| Keywords: | dynamic positivity, team processes, team interactions, problem-solving, dynamic multi-level modeling, statistical discourse analysis |
| Date: | 2013–02–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esm:wpaper:esmt-13-02&r=soc |