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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
| By: | Sarah Brown (Department of Economics, The University of Sheffield); Jolian McHardy (Department of Economics, The University of Sheffield); Karl Taylor (Department of Economics, The University of Sheffield) |
| Abstract: | We explore the relationship between employee trust and workplace performance. We present a theoretical framework which serves to establish a link between employee trust and firm performance as well as to identify possible mechanisms through which the relationship may operate. We then analyse matched workplace and employee data in order to ascertain whether the average level of employee trust within the workplace influences workplace performance. We exploit the 2004 and 2011 Work Place and Employee Relations Surveys (WERS) to analyse the role of employee trust in influencing workplace performance in both pre and post recessionary periods. Our empirical findings support a positive relationship between three measures of workplace performance (financial performance, labour productivity and product or service quality) and employee trust at both points in time. We then exploit employee level data from the WERS to ascertain the determinants of employee trust as well as how trust is influenced by measures taken by employers to deal with the recent recession. Our findings suggest that restricting paid overtime and access to training potentially erode employee trust. In addition, we find that job or work reorganisation experienced at either the employee or organisation level are associated with lower employee trust. |
| Keywords: | employee trust; financial performance; labour productivity; product quality. |
| JEL: | J20 J50 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:shf:wpaper:2013012&r=soc |
| By: | Kohei Daido (School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University); Ken Tabata (School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the role played by the social norms of working hours in a household labor- leisure and fertility decision model. We suppose that social norms enforce workers not to deviate from the ideal level of working hours, which depends on past and current observations of working hours in workplaces. We show that the social norms lead to multiple equilibria: one with long working hours and a low fertility rate and another with short working hours and a high fertility rate. Our results may help to explain the long working hours and low fertility rate that are observed in Japan. |
| Keywords: | Fertility, Work-life balance, Social norms, Peer effects |
| JEL: | O40 J11 J22 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kgu:wpaper:108&r=soc |
| By: | De Benedetto, Marco Alberto (Birkbeck, University of London); De Paola, Maria (University of Calabria) |
| Abstract: | We analyze how having an incumbent among candidates affects electoral turnout. We use a rich data set providing information on the electoral results of Italian municipal elections over the period 1993-2011. Endogeneity issues are handled through an instrumental variable approach using the mayor term-limit as an instrument for the presence of the incumbent mayor among candidates. Controlling for electoral competition, we find that the impact of incumbency is heterogeneous across geographical areas: incumbency increases turnout in the South of Italy, whereas we do not find any statistically significant effect in the North. As the positive effect holds true only for southern municipalities endowed with low levels of social capital we speculate that this is the result of incumbent politicians using their resources to establish clienteles. |
| Keywords: | incumbency, political participation, electoral turnout, social capital |
| JEL: | D72 D78 J71 J16 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7612&r=soc |
| By: | Tsusaka, Takuji W.; Kajisa, Kei; Pede, Valerien O.; Aoyagi, Keitaro |
| Abstract: | Artefactual field experiments, spatial econometrics, and household survey are blended in a single study to investigate how the experience of collective irrigation management in the real world facilitates the spillover of social behaviour among neighbours. The dictator and public goods games are conducted among irrigated and non-irrigated rice farmers in the Philippines. The spillover effect is found only among irrigated farmers. In the public goods game, punishment through social disapproval reduces free-riding more effectively among irrigated farmers. These indicate that strengthened ties among neighbours are likely to induce the spillover of social norms together with an effective punishment mechanism. |
| Keywords: | behavioural games, artefactual field experiments, spatial econometrics, dictator game, public goods game, irrigation, social norms |
| JEL: | C59 D01 Q25 |
| Date: | 2013–07–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:50162&r=soc |
| By: | Asongu Simplice (Yaoundé/Cameroun); Oasis Kodila-Tedika (Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo) |
| Abstract: | The paper extends Breggren et al. (2008, EE) on ‘trust and growth: a shaky relationship” by incorporating recent developments in the trust-growth literature and using a robust methodological underpinning that accounts for the presence of outliers. The empirical evidence is based on 63 countries. Two main findings are established. Firstly, the substantially documented positive trust-growth nexus is broadly confirmed. Secondly, when initial levels of growth come into play in determining the relationship, only 0.25 and 0.90 quantiles confirm the positive nexus. The results suggest that the trust-growth nexus cannot be generalized for all countries as some previous studies have concluded. Accordingly, trust-growth policies should be contingent on existing levels of development and tailored differently across rich and poor countries. |
| Keywords: | Trust; Growth; Conditional Effects |
| JEL: | A13 O40 Z13 |
| Date: | 2013–05–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agd:wpaper:13/024&r=soc |
| By: | AMENDOLA, Adalgiso (CELPE - Centre of Labour Economics and Economic Policy, University of Salerno - Italy); DELL'ANNO, Roberto (CELPE - Centre of Labour Economics and Economic Policy, University of Salerno - Italy) |
| Abstract: | The aims of this article are to propose an overall index of social exclusion and to analyze its relationship with economic growth in European countries. We approach social exclusion as a multidimensional phenomenon by a three-mode principal components analysis (Tucker3 model). This method is applied to estimate an indicator of social exclusion for 28 European countries between 1995 and 2010. The empirical evidence shows that in short run (a) Granger causality runs one way from social exclusion to economic growth and not the other way; (b) countries with a higher level of social exclusion have higher growth rates of real GDP per capita; and (c) social exclusion has a larger effect than the income inequality on the economic growth. The policy implications of our analysis is that social inclusion is not a source of economic growth in the short term. |
| Keywords: | Social exclusion; Economic Growth; Multidimensional index; Three-mode principal components analysis |
| JEL: | C82 D63 O15 O52 |
| Date: | 2013–09–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sal:celpdp:0126&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:crm:wpaper:1321&r=soc |
| By: | Harttgen, Kenneth; Opfinger, Matthias |
| Abstract: | We construct an index for national identity using information from the World Values Survey on peoples' affection towards the nation. We then analyze the relationship between national identity and religious diversity. The results show that religious diversity is significantly and negatively related to national identity. We also find support for the previous finding that ethnic diversity does not seem to be related to national identity. Democratic institutions and mobility throughout the country are positively related to national identity if religious diversity is sufficiently high. Democratic institutions can overcome the negative effect of religious diversity on national identity. |
| Keywords: | National Identity, Minority Groups, Common Values, Democratic Institutions |
| JEL: | H0 O1 Z12 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:50151&r=soc |
| By: | Kaplan, Todd; Ruffle, Bradley; Shtudiner, Zeev |
| Abstract: | Sometimes cooperation between two parties requires exactly one to cede to the other. If the decisions whether to cede are made simultaneously, then neither or both may acquiesce leading to an inefficient outcome. However, inefficiency may be avoided if a party can wait to see what the other does. We experimentally test whether adding a waiting option to such a two-player cooperation game enhances cooperation. Although subjects cede less overall with the waiting option, we show that they coordinate more and consequently achieve higher profits. Yet, a dark side overhangs waiting: the least cooperative pairs do worse with this option. They wait not to facilitate coordination but to disguise their entry. |
| Keywords: | cooperation, endogenous timing, social dilemmas |
| JEL: | C9 Z13 |
| Date: | 2013–09–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:50096&r=soc |
| By: | Alexander Lasco (Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration) |
| Abstract: | Based on a number of monetary theories proposed as economists and sociologists (including credit theory of money and the concept of "Plurality of money"), this paper examines the mechanisms through which is created in the economy of individual institutional support confidence in money. The author shows that the individuals involved in economic exchanges, rely on the ordered hierarchy of institutions that support the trust, and that the diversity of this type hierarchy reflects many social contexts in which there are cash transactions. Moreover it is assumed that the transition to higher levels of these pyramidal structures due to the increase of liquidity (or security) monetary liabilities arising on the appropriate level of the hierarchy. Together with Nevertheless, despite all the attempts to create a sound institutional structures for protection of confidential relations of the individual agents to money, their work is coupled with serious difficulties, which include the lack of guarantor of the High Court, the problem of infinite regress and general uncontrollability of complex monetary systems. These obstacles entail immediate and profound effect, leading to the destruction of structures which designed to support confidence in all three of the above-mentioned areas (Liquidity, acceptability and stability of money), which are critically important for the implementation of the normal circulation of money. |
| Keywords: | money, trust, hierarchy |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rnp:wpaper:35&r=soc |