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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
| By: | Satyanath, Shanker; Voigtländer, Nico; Voth, Hans-Joachim |
| 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: | democracy; extremism; social capital |
| JEL: | N44 P16 |
| Date: | 2013–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9595&r=soc |
| By: | Catia Batista (Faculdade de Economia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa and IZA); Dan Silverman (Arizona State University and NBER); Dean Yang (Department of Economics and Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan, NBER, and BREAD) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the determinants of giving in a lab-in-the-field experiment with large stakes. Study participants in urban Mozambique play dictator games where their counterpart is the closest person to them outside their household. Dictators share more with counterparts when they have the option of giving in kind (in the form of goods), compared to giving that must be in cash. Qualitative post-experiment responses suggest that this effect is driven by a desire to control how recipients use gifted resources. Standard economic determinants such as the rate of return to giving and the size of the endowment also affect giving, but the effects of even large changes in these determinants are significantly smaller than the effect of the in-kind option. Our results support theories of giving where the utility of givers depends on the composition (not just the level) of gift-recipient expenditures, and givers thus seek control over transferred resources. |
| Keywords: | sharing, altruism, giving, dictator game, inter-household transfers, Mozambique |
| JEL: | C92 C93 D01 D03 D64 O17 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nor:wpaper:2013020&r=soc |
| By: | Choy, James (Department of Economics, University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | Many societies are divided into multiple smaller groups. The defining feature of these groups is that certain kinds of interaction are more likely to take place within a group than across groups. I build a model in which group divisions are enforced through a reputational penalty for interacting with members of different groups. Agents who interact with members of different groups find that they can support lower levels of cooperation in the future. The model explains why agents may be punished by the other members of their group for interacting with members of different groups and why agents are punished for interacting with members of some groups but not others. I test the empirical implication that there should be less cooperation among members of groups that make up a larger percentage of their communities. I discuss the origin and possible future of social division. JEL classification: Cooperation ; Caste ; Social Institution JEL codes: C7 ; O12 ; O17 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:1011&r=soc |
| By: | Situngkir, Hokky; Maulana, Ardian |
| Abstract: | The paper discusses an important aspect of the complexity of corruption eradication in Indonesia. Corruption eradication is practically not merely about law enforcement, but also related to social, economic, and political aspects of the nation. By extracting the data from national news media and implement models describing the sentiment relations among political actors, the connection between balance of the sentiment among political elites and the critical levels of the investigation and law enforcement is apparently demonstrated. The focus group discussions among experts, practitioners, and social activists confirm the model. |
| Keywords: | corruption eradication, Indonesia, KPK RI, political actor, sentiment relations |
| JEL: | C54 C60 C83 H0 K42 O10 Y1 Z13 |
| Date: | 2013–09–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:49843&r=soc |
| By: | Kenju Kamei; Louis Putterman |
| Abstract: | Previous research has shown that opportunities for two-sided partner choice in finitely repeated social dilemma games can promote cooperation through a combination of sorting and opportunistic signaling, with late period defections by selfish players causing an end-game decline. How such experience would affect play of subsequent finitely-repeated games remains unclear. In each of six treatments that vary the cooperation premium and the informational basis for reputation formation, we let sets of subjects play sequences of finitely-repeated voluntary contribution games to study the competing forces of (a) learning about the benefits of reputation, and (b) learning about backward unraveling. We find, inter alia, that with a high cooperation premium and good information, investment in reputation grows across sets of finitely-repeated games. |
| Keywords: | cooperation, reputation, voluntary contribution, public goods, sorting, endogenous grouping, group formation, experiment |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bro:econwp:2013-8&r=soc |
| By: | Christian Bjørnskov (Department of Economics and Business, Aarhus University); Jacob Mchangama (Center for Political Studies, Copenhagen, Denmark) |
| Abstract: | While the United Nations and NGOs are pushing for global judicialization of economic, social and cultural rights (ESCRs), little is known of their consequences. We provide evidence of the effects of introducing three types of ESCRs into the constitution: the rights to education, health and social security. Employing a large panel covering annual data from 160 countries in the period 1960-2010, we find no robust evidence of positive effects of ESCRs. We do, however, document adverse medium-term effects on education and inflation. |
| Keywords: | Human rights, human development, constitutional political economy |
| JEL: | K19 H11 O11 |
| Date: | 2013–09–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aah:aarhec:2013-18&r=soc |
| By: | Yamamura, Eiji |
| Abstract: | This paper uses inter-country panel data obtained during the period 1990 to 2010 to examine how the occurrence of natural disasters has affected corruption within the public sector. There are a number of major findings from this study. (1) Natural disasters lead to corruption within the public sector. (2) Furthermore, disaggregating disasters into various categories for closer examination reveals that floods, which are foreseeable and affect victims that are limited to a particular group, increase corruption; however, other types of disasters do not have such a consequence. (3) The effect of floods is much greater in developed countries than in developing countries. These findings are observed even after considering the time trend, the various characteristics of the countries affected, and statistical outliers. In developed countries, people have an incentive to live within areas prone to flooding because the benefit expected from the occurrence of a flood is greater than its perceived cost. |
| Keywords: | Corruption, Institution, Disasters, Risk |
| JEL: | D7 D81 Q54 |
| Date: | 2013–09–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:49760&r=soc |
| By: | nada, BELHADJ (ISG, University of Tunis); GABSZEWICZ, Jean J. (Université catholique de Louvain, CORE, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.); TAROLA, Ornella (DISSE, University of Rome “La Sapienza”) |
| Abstract: | Human actions are often guided both by individual rationality and by social norms. In this paper we explore how duopoly market competition values the variants of a product, when these variants embody at different levels the requirements derived from some social norm. In a model where preferences of consumers depend partially on the levels of compliance of the variants with the social norm, we characterize the equilibrium path along which firms choose sequentially their level of compliance and their price. |
| Keywords: | social norms, others regarding preferences, vertical product differentiation |
| JEL: | D11 L13 Q58 |
| Date: | 2013–09–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cor:louvco:2013043&r=soc |
| By: | Tobias Regner (Max Planck Institute for Economics, Jena); Gerhard Riener (Duesseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE)) |
| Abstract: | The emergence of Pay-What-You-Want (PWYW) business models as a successful alternative to conventional uniform pricing brings up new questions related to the task of pricing. We investigate the eect of a reduction of privacy on consumers' purchase decisions (whether to buy, and if so how much to pay) in a natural experiment at an online music store with PWYW-like pricing. Our study extends the empirical evidence of the reduced anonymity eect, previously established for donation or public goods contexts, to a consumption environment. We nd that revealing the name of the customer led to slightly higher payments, while it drastically reduced the number of customers purchasing. Overall, the regime led to a revenue loss of 15%. The experiment suggests that even low levels of social pressure without face to face interaction on customers leads to a reduction of welfare. |
| Keywords: | Digital content, Voluntary Payments, PWYW, Public goods, Voluntary contributions, Social pressure, Internet, Privacy, Natural experiment |
| JEL: | D03 D49 H41 L82 L86 P14 |
| Date: | 2013–09–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2013-032&r=soc |