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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
| By: | Junyi Shen (Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration (RIEB), Kobe University, Japan); Xiangdong Qin (School of Economics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China) |
| Abstract: | Many previous empirical studies have suggested that cooperation and trust affect economic growth. However, the precise relationship between trust and cooperation (i.e., whether trust leads to cooperation or cooperation leads to trust) remains unclear and it is not known how the level of economic development affects the level of cooperation and trust. Using a combination of public goods experiment, gambling game experiment, and trust game experiment, we investigate the links among cooperation, trust, and economic development in four regions of China. Our results suggest that first, there is a U-shaped or V-shaped relationship between cooperation and economic development; second, on the one hand, cooperation leads to trust, and on the other hand, more cooperative behavior may be created by rewarding trusting behavior; and third, men are more cooperative and trusting than women. Furthermore, we find that the widely used 'GSS trust' question from the General Social Survey (GSS) does not predict either cooperation or trust, whereas the questions 'GSS fair' and 'GSS help' have weak predictive power for trusting behavior but not for cooperative behavior. |
| Keywords: | Cooperation, Trust, Economic development, Experiment, China |
| JEL: | C91 H41 I32 |
| Date: | 2013–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kob:dpaper:dp2013-13&r=soc |
| By: | Holstein, Fredrik (Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences); Gren, Ing-Marie (Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) |
| Abstract: | This paper tests the explanatory power of traditional enforcement instruments, environmental attitudes and abundance of social capital for violation of environmental regulations in Sweden. A count data model is used on a panel data set obtained from a survey to inspectors at the local and regional jurisdictions in Sweden. Regressions analyses are carried out for all firms but also for different firm categories depending on environmental impacts. The results indicate that traditional enforcement weapons, measured as number of inspection and a formal inspection style, curb violation by all types of firm categories. On the other hand, significant results are that environmental attitudes and abundance of social capital deter violation by large firms, but have no impact on violation by firms with minor environmental impacts. |
| Keywords: | environmental regulations; violation; economic motives; environmental attitudes; social capital; heterogeneous firms; count data model; Sweden |
| JEL: | K33 K42 Q58 |
| Date: | 2013–03–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:slueko:2013_003&r=soc |
| By: | Tonin, Mirco (University of Southampton); Vlassopoulos, Michael (University of Southampton) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we investigate the relationship between earnings and charitable giving. We set up a real effort experiment, in which subjects enter data in four one-hour occasions and are paid a piece rate. From the second occasion onwards, we randomly assign half of the subjects to a treatment with higher piece rates. At the end we ask subjects whether they want to donate a share of their earnings to a charity of their choice. We find that, despite large differences in earnings due to the different piece rates, subjects receiving the higher piece rate are actually less likely to give, and that givers in the two groups give the same share of their total earnings. Charities receive the same average donation from members of the two groups indicating that subjects in this experiment do not treat charitable giving as a normal good. |
| Keywords: | charity, earnings, luck, effort, windfall |
| JEL: | D64 J39 |
| Date: | 2013–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7294&r=soc |
| By: | Guzmán, Andrea (Universidad Nacional de Colombia-Sede Medellin); Villegas-Palacio, Clara (Universidad Nacional de Colombia-Sede Medellin); Wollbrant, Conny (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | A growing literature in economics examines the development of preferences among children and adolescents. This paper combines a repeated dictator game with treatments that either provides participants with information about the average behavior of others or not. Collecting data on 384 children aged 5-17, we find that sensitivity to social information is present already in early life and that information about others’ donations can reduce, but primarily increases donations.<p> |
| Keywords: | Children; Charitable giving; Social information; Preference development |
| JEL: | C93 D02 D03 D64 |
| Date: | 2013–03–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0564&r=soc |
| By: | Mary-Françoise Renard (CERDI - Centre d'études et de recherches sur le developpement international - CNRS : UMR6587 - Université d'Auvergne - Clermont-Ferrand I); Huanxiu GUO (CERDI - Centre d'études et de recherches sur le developpement international - CNRS : UMR6587 - Université d'Auvergne - Clermont-Ferrand I) |
| Abstract: | Since 2003, a grass-roots movement of New Rural Reconstruction (NRR) has emerged in China to experience alternative model of rural development. The movement adopts a particular approach for rural development on basis of rural social and cultural reconstruction. In order to understand this social approach, we investigate an original NRR experiment in a poor village of south China, where organic farming is promoted by means of basketball game. An in-depth household survey is conducted to qualitatively analyze this social approach and derive intuitive hypothesis of extended social network for empirical test. With a panel structure dataset collected by the survey, we quantitatively identify the causal effect of social network by exploiting the endogeneity of social network formation. Our identification result provides micro evidence for a large social multiplier effect in the diffusion of organic farming, whereas it is negative for organic experts. Also, our results highlight the role of women, education and labor force for the development of organic farming. On basis of these results, we conclude that organic farming is suitable but challenging for small villages in China, while social activity is a good lever to achieve farmers' collective action for its large diffusion. |
| Keywords: | New rural reconstruction; Social network; Organic farming; China. D71;O33;Q55 |
| Date: | 2013–03–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00802119&r=soc |
| By: | Gurdal, Mehmet Y.; Ozdogan, Ayca; Saglam, Ismail |
| Abstract: | Recent experimental studies find excessive truth-telling and excessive trust in one sender/one receiver cheap talk games with an essentially unique and babbling equilibrium. We extend this setup by adding a second sender into the play and study the behavior of the players both theoretically and experimentally. We examine games where senders are assumed to communicate with the receiver either simultaneously or sequentially as well as a game where the receiver chooses one of these two communication methods. The theoretical predictions for truth-telling, non-conflicting messages observed and trust frequencies are the same for both the simultaneous and sequential plays; however, we observe systematic differences between the treatments of these plays. While the truth-telling frequencies stay above the theoretical prediction of the one half during all the experiments, the nature of truth-telling seems to differ between sequential and simultaneous plays. Under simultaneous communication, the messages of senders are non-conflictive more than half of the time, while the non-conflicting messages are significantly more likely to be correct than not. The frequency of non-conflicting messages is lower under sequential plays due to the tendency of the second sender to revert the message of the first sender. We observe that subjects who prefer to get non-conflicting messages prefer simultaneous mode of communication more often. When acting as senders, these subjects also adjust their truth-telling frequencies so as to generate conflictive messages. |
| Keywords: | Strategic information transmission; truth-telling; trust; sender-receiver game. |
| JEL: | C72 C90 D83 |
| Date: | 2013–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:45727&r=soc |
| By: | Grossman, Zachary; van der Weele, Joël |
| Abstract: | Avoiding information about adverse welfare consequences of self-interested decisions, orstrategic ignorance, is an important source of corruption, anti-social behavior and even atrocities. We model an agent who cares about self-image and has the opportunity to learn the social benefits of a personally costly action. The trade-off between self-image concerns and material payoffs can lead the agent to use ignorance as an excuse, even if it is deliberately chosen. Two experiments, modeled after Dana, Weber, and Kuang (2007), show that a) many people will reveal relevant information about others' payoffs after making an ethical decision, but not before, and b) some people are willing to pay for ignorance. These results corroborate the idea that Bayesian self-signaling drives people to avoid inconvenient facts in moral decisions. |
| Keywords: | Economics, Economics, General, prosocial behavior, dictator games, strategic ignorance, self-signaling |
| Date: | 2013–03–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:ucsbec:qt0bp6z29t&r=soc |
| By: | Da Silva, Sergio |
| Abstract: | Group thinking is the notion that animals do those things that maximize the chance of survival of their species. It is wrong because natural selection does not favor what is good for the group or the species; it favors what is good for the individual. Here, I show through examples how group thinking also pervades economics. In connection with the fallacy of group thinking, I also discuss how economics fails to ground itself in the underlying knowledge provided by biology. I also argue that economists need to redirect their conventional approach to study group behavior. Current macroeconomics is reductionist while the route followed by biology, physics, and chemistry was to resort to a different approach when focusing on macro systems made up of a large number of heterogeneous micro units. The group level pattern self-organizes as it is not encoded directly in the individual-level rules. And here the right mathematical models can help deduce hidden connections between the interactions of individuals and the patterns that emerge at the group level. |
| Keywords: | group thinking, biology, economics |
| JEL: | B41 D7 Y8 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:45660&r=soc |