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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
| By: | Drouvelis, Michalis (University of Birmingham); Powdthavee, Nattavudh (London School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | What determines people's moral judgments of selfish behaviors? Here we study whether people's normative views in trust and gift exchange games, which underlie many situations of economic and social significance, are themselves functions of positive emotions. We used experimental survey methods to investigate people's moral judgments empirically, and explored whether we could influence subsequent judgments by deliberately making some individuals happier. We found that moral judgments of selfish behaviors in the economic context depend strongly on other people's behaviors, but their relationships are significantly moderated by an increase in happiness for the person making the judgment. |
| Keywords: | happiness, moral judgments, trust games, gift exchange games |
| JEL: | C91 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7495&r=soc |
| By: | Elaine Liu (University of Houston); Juanjuan Meng (Peking University Guanghua School of Management); Joseph Wang (National Taiwan University) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how Confucianism affects individual decision making in Taiwan and in China and whether the Cultural Revolution in China, which denounced Confucian teaching, has had a long-lasting impact. We found that Chinese subjects in our experiments became less accepting of Confucian values, such that they became more risk loving, less loss averse, and more impatient after being primed with Confucianism, whereas Taiwanese subjects became more trustworthy and more patient after being primed by Confucianism. Combining the evidence from the incentivized laboratory experiments and subjective survey measures, we found evidence that Chinese subjects and Taiwanese subjects reacted differently to Confucianism. |
| Keywords: | social norm, Confucianism, time preferences, risk aversion, trust |
| JEL: | C91 Z10 |
| Date: | 2013–07–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hou:wpaper:2013-199-49&r=soc |
| By: | Berulava, George |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of trust-based relations on firm’s performance in transition economies. The trade credit variable is used as a proxy of trust-based relations and the propensity score matching method is employed to establish casual link between relational governance and business performance in the study. The research is conducted using data from a large survey of firms across 28 transition economies. The results of the study suggest that informal trust-based institutions of contract governance represent an important way for enhancing of business performance. To say distinctly, our findings indicate that in transition economies trade credits positively affect firms’ sales growth. They provide incentives for more intensive innovation activities and ensure higher labor productivity rates. The firms that trust their partners are characterized by larger proportions of reinvested profits as well. The main contribution of this paper is that it provides new empirical insights into the casual link between trust-based relations and business performance of firms in transition economies. |
| Keywords: | Keywords: trust-based relations, trade credit, networks, propensity score matching, business performance, transition economies |
| JEL: | D23 L14 P31 Z13 |
| Date: | 2013–07–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:48430&r=soc |
| By: | Jianpei Li; Paul Schweinzer |
| Abstract: | We study the incentives of noncooperative players to play a cooperative game. That is, we look for individually rational, redistributive, pre-game agreements enacted in order to coordinate towards efficient equilibrium play. Contrasting with standard Nash equilibrium analysis, we assume that players can commit to the agreements they negotiate and that utility is verify and transferable. We show that agreeing on a proportional-exponential redistribution rule is individually rational and implements the socially efficient outcome as Nash equilibrium. Moreover, we show that this class of redistributional contracts may be naturally obtained as the outcome of Nash bargaining. |
| Keywords: | Redistribution, Efficiency, Social contract |
| JEL: | C72 D62 D71 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yor:yorken:13/19&r=soc |
| By: | Bethencourt, Carlos; Kunze, Lars |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a theoretical model to account for the most relevant micro- and macroeconomic empirical facts in the tax evasion literature. To do so, we integrate tax morale into a dynamic overlapping generations model of capital income tax evasion. Tax morale is modeled as a social norm for tax compliance. It is shown that accounting for such nonpecuniary costs of evasion may not only explain (i) why some taxpayers never evade even if the gamble is profitable, and (ii) how a higher tax rate can increase evasion, but also that (iii) the share of evaded taxes over GDP decreases with the stage of economic development and (iv) that tax morale is positively correlated with the level of GDP per capita as suggested by recent empirical evidence. Finally, a higher tax rate increases aggregate evasion as well as the number of evaders in the economy when taxpayers decisions are interdependent. |
| Keywords: | tax evasion, social norms, overlapping generations, economic growth |
| JEL: | D91 H26 Z13 |
| Date: | 2013–07–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:48427&r=soc |
| By: | Harounan Kazianga (Oklahoma State University); Zaki Wahhaj (Department of International Development, Oxford University) |
| Abstract: | Empirical studies of intra-household allocation has revealed that, in many instances, gender is an important determinant in the allocation of resources within the household. Yet, within the theoretical literature, why gender matters within the household remains an open question. In this paper, we propose a simple model of intra-household allocation based on a particular social institution for the organisation of agricultural production practised among certain ethnic groups in West Africa. We highlight how this institution, while resolving certain problems of commitment and informational asymmetry, can also lead to a gendered pattern in the allocation of productive resources and consumption within the household. Using a survey of agricultural households in Burkina Faso, we show, consistent with this theory, that plots owned by the head of the household are farmed more intensively, and achieves higher yields, than plots with similar characteristics owned by other household members. Male and female family members who do not head the household achieve similar yields. We argue that the higher yields achieved by the household head may be explained in terms of social norms that require him to spend the earnings from some plots under his control exclusively on household public goods, which in turn provides other family members the incentive to voluntarily contribute labour on his farms. Using expenditures data, and measures of rainfall to capture weather-related shocks to agricultural income, we show that the household head has, indeed, a higher marginal propensity to spend on household public goods than other household members. The fact that the head of the household is usually male accounts for the gendered pattern in labour allocation and yields across different farm plots. |
| Keywords: | Intra-household allocation, social norms, gender, household public goods |
| JEL: | O12 D13 Q1 |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:okl:wpaper:0910&r=soc |
| By: | Jörg Wischermann (GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies) |
| Abstract: | Associationalism under authoritarian rule is not automatically a good thing. The empirical findings laid out in this article indicate that authoritarian dispositions and practices are prevalent in all types of Vietnamese civic organizations, at least as far as internal decision-making processes are concerned. As is the case in most countries of Southeast Asia, old as well as new ideas of the state and state traditions have a strong impact on the patterns of authoritarianism found in Vietnamese civic organizations. From the empirical findings, it might be concluded that Vietnamese civic organizations support authoritarian rule – though the extent of such support varies; this has generally been an underresearched question. This pioneering article seeks to stimulate further research by offering new insights into how authoritarian power is exercised in Vietnam by addressing how associations’ activities stabilize rules, how the associated legitimizing effects can be conceptualized and understood in theoretical terms, and what would be a suitable operationalization of the aforementioned concepts. |
| Keywords: | civil society, authoritarianism, authoritarian rule, Vietnam |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gig:wpaper:228&r=soc |
| By: | Yann Algan (Department of Economics, Sciences Po); Camille Hémet (Aix-Marseille University (Aix-Marseille School of Economics), CNRS & EHESS and Sciences Po); David Laitin (Department of Political Science, Stanford University) |
| Abstract: | This paper demonstrates the effects of ethnic diversity on social relationships and the quality of public spaces at a very finite neighborhood level. We use detailed block level data on diversity and housing quality from a representative survey on housing in France. We show how and to what extent diversity within a neighborhood can directly affect household well-being and the quality of the common spaces, whereas the previous literature looks at more aggregate outcomes through voting channels. Our identification strategy relies on the exogeneity of public housing allocations with respect to ethnic characteristics in France, to address the bias due to endogenous residential sorting. Diversity is shown to have a negative effect on the quality of local public goods, either due to vandalism, not deterred by other-regarding preferences and social policing, or due to collective action failure to ensure effective property management. However, we find that diversity has no robust effect on public safety at a local level and, if anything, is more related to social anomie. |
| Keywords: | diversity, neighborhood effects, living conditions, public housing |
| JEL: | H10 H41 |
| Date: | 2013–07–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aim:wpaimx:1338&r=soc |
| By: | Shanker Satyanath; Nico Voigtländer; Hans-Joachim Voth |
| Abstract: | Social capital – a dense network of associations facilitating cooperation within a community – typically leads to positive political and economic outcomes, as demonstrated by a large literature following Putnam. A growing literature emphasizes the potentially "dark side" of social capital. This paper examines the role of social capital in the downfall of democracy in interwar Germany by analyzing Nazi party entry rates in a cross-section of towns and cities. Before the Nazi Party’s triumphs at the ballot box, it built an extensive organizational structure, becoming a mass movement with nearly a million members by early 1933. We show that dense networks of civic associations such as bowling clubs, animal breeder associations, or choirs facilitated the rise of the Nazi Party. The effects are large: Towns with one standard deviation higher association density saw at least one-third faster growth in the strength of the Nazi Party. IV results based on 19th century measures of social capital reinforce our conclusions. In addition, all types of associations – veteran associations and non-military clubs, "bridging" and "bonding" associations – positively predict NS party entry. These results suggest that social capital in Weimar Germany aided the rise of the Nazi movement that ultimately destroyed Germany’s first democracy. |
| Keywords: | social capital, democracy, political economy, Weimar Germany, Nazi Party |
| JEL: | N44 P16 Z10 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:703&r=soc |