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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
| By: | Liang, Pinghan; Meng, Juanjuan |
| Abstract: | This paper conducts a laboratory experiment to investigate the role of social connections in behavioral indirect reciprocity. We provide the evidence of spillovers effects of social ties, e.g., the recipient’s indirect reciprocal act varies with the relations between the donor and a third party. Naturally occurring friendship is employed to study social connections. Thus, a beneficiary might either be a “friend” or a “stranger” of the donor. We demonstrate that knowing social connections significantly increases the recipient’s repayment only if the donor is kind enough in the first place. Overall, recipients’ indirect reciprocity almost doubles when introducing social networks among donors and beneficiaries. It is also shown that this spillovers effect is unlikely the result of recipients’ perception of donors’ expectations. Major theories of social preferences, e.g., fairness, intention-based, guilt-aversion, cannot offer satisfactory explanations of our findings. We propose an explanation based on in-group and out-group differences but with endogenous group status, in which social connections play a crucial role. |
| Keywords: | indirect reciprocity, social connections, spillovers, social preferences |
| JEL: | C91 D03 D85 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:45270&r=soc |
| By: | Giacomo, Degli Antoni; Fabio, Sabatini |
| Abstract: | We use a unique dataset to study how participation in two specific types of nonprofit organizations, i.e. social welfare associations and social cooperatives, affects individual social capital. A descriptive analysis shows that both the types of organization have a positive impact. The econometric analysis reveals that social welfare associations play a significantly greater role in the development of volunteers’ networks of cooperative relationships, favouring the creation of weak ties which are used to exchange information and advice, and offering the opportunity to establish stronger ties entailing concrete mutual support. Within social cooperatives, workers develop their individual social capital to a greater extent than volunteers. |
| Keywords: | volunteering, nonprofit organizations, cooperative enterprises, social cooperatives, social capital, social networks |
| JEL: | L31 L33 P13 Z1 |
| Date: | 2013–03–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:44860&r=soc |
| By: | Piracha, Matloob (University of Kent); Tani, Massimiliano (Macquarie University, Sydney); Vaira-Lucero, Matias (Macquarie University, Sydney) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the role of social capital on immigrants' labour market outcomes. We use the "principal component analysis" (PCA) to build an index of social networks and explore its impact on the probability of getting a job and on wage levels using the Households Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) longitudinal survey data. We find a positive effect of social capital on migrants' employment outcomes and wages, especially for women. Distinguishing employment into blue and white-collar jobs, we find that social capital only affects the probability of getting a white-collar job. These results suggest that promoting opportunities to create social capital has a beneficial effect on migrants' integration in the host country. |
| Keywords: | immigrants, labour market, social capital, HILDA survey, Australia |
| JEL: | F22 J01 J61 Z13 |
| Date: | 2013–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7274&r=soc |
| By: | Julie Moschion (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne); Domenico Tabasso (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the respective influence of intergenerational transmission and the environment in shaping individual trust. Focusing on second generation immigrants in Australia and the United States, we exploit the variation in the home and in the host country to separate the effect of the cultural background from that of the social and economic conditions on individual trust. Our results indicate that trust in the home country contributes to the trust of second generation immigrants in both host countries, but particularly so in the United States. Social and economic conditions in the host country, such as crime rate, economic inequality, race inequality and segregation by country of origin, also affect trust. Evidence for first generation immigrants confirms that the transmission of trust across generations is primarily important in the United States, and, that differences in trust levels between the two host countries increase with acculturation. |
| Keywords: | Trust, migration, culture |
| JEL: | J15 O15 Z10 |
| Date: | 2013–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2013n02&r=soc |
| By: | Paul H. Jensen (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne; Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia, The University of Melbourne); Alfons Palangkaraya (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne; Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia, The University of Melbourne); Elizabeth Webster (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne; Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia, The University of Melbourne) |
| Abstract: | Conditional on the decision to enter the market for immature technology, we test for the effects that trust – as proxied by the context in which the negotiating parties met – has on the likelihood that these negotiations are successful. Using a randomised dataset of 860 university-firm and firm-firm technology transactions, we find that the depth of prior relationship and circumstantial knowledge about each other matters, and matters a lot. Parties who knew each other from a previous business are 28.2 percentage points more likely to conclude a transaction compared with cold-callers. Meeting via an industry network offers an intermediate advantage but meeting via a third party or at a conference only offers a modest advantage over cold calling. |
| Keywords: | Markets for technology, R&D, invention, patent |
| JEL: | O31 O34 |
| Date: | 2013–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2013n03&r=soc |
| By: | Surajeet Chakravarty (Department of Economics, University of Exeter); Miguel A. Fonseca (Department of Economics, University of Exeter) |
| Abstract: | We study using laboratory experiments the impact on cooperation of allowing individuals to invest in group-specific, excludable public goods. We find that allowing different social groups to voluntarily contribute to such goods increases total contributions. However, a significant proportion of that contribution goes towards the group-specific club good, rather than the public good, even when the latter has higher financial returns to cooperation. We find significant evidence of in-group biases, which are manifested by positive in-group reciprocity. That is, club goods allow subjects to display their preferences for interaction with their in-group members, as well as in positive in-group reciprocity. |
| Keywords: | club goods, social identity, experiment |
| JEL: | C92 D02 D03 H41 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:exe:wpaper:1302&r=soc |
| By: | Ivo Bischoff (University of Kassel); Thomas Krauskopf (University of Kassel) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the motives of pro-social behavior in collective decisions in an economic experiment. It compares individual behavior in private and collective decisions in a unified experimental setup. Subjects are given an individual endowment and have to decide how much of it to donate to charity. The experiment is combined with two long questionnaires that provide us with background information on subjects and enables us to learn more about the motives driving their behavior. Contrary to theoretical predictions, the distribution of amounts donated individually is remarkably similar to the distribution of amounts proposed for collective donation. In regressions, we find individual donations to be driven by consequentialist motives, social norms and moral convictions. In collective decisions, neither the motiverelated variables nor any of the control variables are found significant. Comparing subjects’ affective state before and after the experiment, we find that individual donations create a feeling of warm glow while collective donations do not. On the other hand, the change in affective state in the collective decision is higher the higher the amount proposed for the collective donation. This pattern is consistent with expressive motives. |
| Keywords: | voting motives, voluntary contributions, redistribution, charity, economic experiment, warm-glow, Immanuel Kant, affect |
| JEL: | C90 D72 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:magkse:201319&r=soc |
| By: | Delia Furtado; Nikolaos Theodoropoulos |
| Abstract: | Immigrants residing among many people who share their ethnic background are especially likely to receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for a disability when they belong to high SSI take-up immigrant groups. After showing that this relationship cannot be fully explained by differences in health, we consider the likely sources of these network effects by separately examining their role in the decision to apply for SSI and, conditional on applying, their role in determining who ultimately receives benefits. Our results suggest that networks may increase the probability of applying for SSI despite minor disabilities, but it is unlikely that network effects are driven by egregious lies on applications. |
| Date: | 2013–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crr:crrwps:wp2013-7&r=soc |
| By: | María Errea (Departamento de Economía-UPNA); Juan M. Cabasés (Departamento de Economía-UPNA) |
| Abstract: | The decision to donate blood and living organs is considered voluntary and altruistic. However, the shortage of donors has opened an interesting debate in recent years, considering offering economic incentives to donors. This paper analyzes theoretically and empirically, the effects of incentives over individuals when facing the decision of becoming donors. Results show that crowding-in of blood donors would be more likely by offering "Information concerning blood donations" or "Blood Tests". In both, blood and living organ donations, "Money" would be very likely to crowd-out individuals from donating. Concerning living organs, we do not find good evidence for crowding-in. We conclude donation policies, properly designed, could help to increase the number of donors, and more specifically suggest implementing non-monetary incentives. |
| Keywords: | social preferences, incentives, altruism, blood and living organ donations |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nav:ecupna:1302&r=soc |