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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
| By: | Maria Bigoni; Stefania Bortolotti; Marco Casari; Diego Gambetta; Francesca Pancotto |
| Abstract: | Socio-economic performance differs not only across countries but within countries too and can persist even after religion, language, and formal institutions are long shared. One interpretation of these disparities is that successful regions are characterized by higher levels of trust, and, more generally, of cooperation. Here we study a classic case of within-country disparities, the Italian North-South divide, to find out whether people exhibit geographically distinct abilities to cooperate independently of many other factors and whence these differences emerge. Through an experiment in four Italian cities, we study the behavior of a sample of the general population toward trust and contributions to the common good. We find that trust and contributions vary in unison, and diminish moving from North to South. This regional gap cannot be attributed to payoffs from cooperation or to institutions, formal or informal, that may vary across Italy, as the experimental methodology silences their impact. The gap is also independent of risk and other-regarding preferences which we measure experimentally, suggesting that the lower ability to cooperate we find in the South is not due to individual "moral" flaws. The gap could originate from emergent collective properties, such as different social norms and the expectations they engender. The absence of convergence in behavior during the last 150 years, since Italy was unified, further suggests that these norms can persist overtime. Using a millenniumlong dataset, we explore whether the quality of past political institutions and the frequency of wars could explain the emergence of these differences in norms. |
| Keywords: | Trust, social norms, experiments, long-term persistence, conflicts, institutions. |
| JEL: | C90 D03 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eui:euiwps:eco2013/04&r=soc |
| By: | Fabrizio Adriani (University of Leicester); Silvia Sonderegger (School of Economics, University of Nottingham) |
| Abstract: | People often form expectations about others using the lens of their own attitudes (the so-called consensus effect). We study the implications of this for trust and trustworthiness. Trustworthy individuals are more \optimistic" than opportunists and are accordingly less afraid to engage in market-based exchanges, where they may be vulnerable to opportunistic behavior. In some cases, the material benefits from greater market participation may compensate for the costs of being trustworthy. We use an indirect evolutionary approach to endogenize preferences for trustworthiness, showing that a polymorphic equilibrium (where both trustworthiness and opportunism coexist in the population) may be evolutionarily stable. Better institutions limiting the scope for opportunism may favor the spreading of trustworthiness (crowding in), but the opposite (crowding out) may also occur. Our analysis is consistent with experimental evidence. |
| Keywords: | Endogenous Preferences, Trust, Consensus Effect, Institutions, Crowding Out |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notcdx:2013-09&r=soc |
| By: | Debertin, David L.; Goetz, Stephan J. |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we define social capital from different perspectives and show how it is linked to the concept of a community. Based on these definitions, a conceptual framework for analyzing and measuring social capital and its indicators is developed. A typology for analyzing social capital is then created based on different types of communities. The characteristics of three prototype communities–a small rural community, a modern city suburb, and a community located in the core of a central city are outlined. For each prototype community, social capital formation strategies and indicators suggesting evidence of social capital are identified. Implications for future research efforts dealing with social capital are discussed. |
| Keywords: | social capital, community, rural community, suburban community, urban community, community development, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Labor and Human Capital, R58, |
| Date: | 2013–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:ukysps:159102&r=soc |
| By: | Schaeffer, Merlin |
| Abstract: | Over the last two decades there has been a growing debate on the supposedly negative relation between ethnic diversity, public goods production and social cohesion. Despite the amount of evidence, existing in-depth qualitative reviews conclude that the literature is inconclusive. Advancing upon their work, I conduct a quantitative review of over 480 empirical findings from 172 studies. Rather than seeing the huge literature as consisting of an incomparable mass of studies, I argue that the diversity of the literature allows us to analyse the robustness of the general association (does it hold for the comparison of Nepalese villages and European countries alike?) and the conditions under which it is more likely to appear. Accordingly, the review fine-tunes the conclusions we can draw from the existing evidence by noting that the debate has generally produced slightly more confirmatory than confuting evidence. But more importantly, this tendency for validating findings increases considerably under certain conditions: (1) inquiries from regions of the world with rather salient ethnic boundaries, (2) analysis of small-scale neighbourhood contexts and (3) a focus on trust related sentiments or public goods production as outcomes. A rather problematic result of the review is that discipline matters: In comparison to findings published in political science or sociology journals, a considerably larger percentage of findings that are published in economics journals are confirmatory. I conclude by suggesting that interdisciplinary work is necessary and should focus on the conditions under which ethnic diversity is a significant predictor of public goods production and social cohesion. -- |
| Keywords: | ethnic diversity,social cohesion,social capital,intergroup relations |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wzbmit:spvi2013103&r=soc |
| By: | Bernd Hayo (University of Marburg); Edith Neuenkirch (University of Marburg) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we analyse the effects of objective and subjective knowledge about mone-tary policy, as well as the information search patterns, of German citizens on trust in the ECB. We rely on a unique representative public opinion survey of German households conducted in 2011. We find that subjective and factual knowledge, as well as the desire to be informed, about the ECB foster citizens’ trust. Specific knowledge about the ECB is more influential than general monetary policy knowledge. Objective knowledge is more important than subjective knowledge. However, an increasing intensity of media usage, especially newspaper reading, has a significantly negative influence on trust. We con-clude that the only viable way for the ECB to generate more trust in itself is to spread monetary policy knowledge. |
| Keywords: | ECB, Economic knowledge, German public attitudes, Institutional trust |
| JEL: | D83 E52 E58 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:magkse:201347&r=soc |
| By: | Maciej Albinowski (Warsaw School of Economics); Piotr Ciżkowicz (Warsaw School of Economics); Andrzej Rzońca (Warsaw School of Economics and Monetary Policy Council in Narodowy) |
| Abstract: | We contribute to the new, albeit fast-growing empirical literature on the determinants of trust in central banks. Like in most other studies we use panel data models based on the Eurobarometer survey on trust in the European Central Bank. Firstly, we confirm the main conclusion from previous studies that the trust in the ECB has suffered from the crisis’ outburst. Moreover, households perceive the ECB’s responsibility for the occurrence of the crisis to go beyond the responsibility of other institutions. This finding casts some doubt on the central bank’s ability to manage expectations in a country having been hit by a severe negative demand shock, while this ability is precondition of the central banks’ power to boost aggregate demand when its interest rates are at the zero lower bound. Secondly (and most importantly), in addition to previous studies, we examine the links between the trust in the ECB and its policy. Our main result is that when households have pessimistic expectations, aggressive cuts in interest rates have an adverse effect on their trust in central bank. This result is in accordance with the ‘lack-of-confidence shock’ hypothesis developed by Schmitt-Grohé and Uribe (2012) and go against the ‘fundamental shock’ hypothesis which would imply positive effects of aggressive cuts for trust in the ECB. These findings are robust to changes in the estimation method, the definition of the lack of confidence shock, control variables and countries under consideration. We also show that it cannot be easily rejected as spurious. |
| Keywords: | trust in central banks, zero lower bound, lack-of-confidence shock, Eurobarometer, panel data |
| JEL: | C23 E58 H12 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbp:nbpmis:158&r=soc |
| By: | Renaud Bourlès (Ecole Centrale Marseille (Aix-Marseille School of Economics), CNRS & EHESS); Yann Bramoullé (Aix-Marseille University (Aix-Marseille School of Economics), CNRS & EHESS) |
| Abstract: | We provide the first theoretical analysis of altruism in networks. Agents are embedded in a fixed, weighted network and care about their direct friends. Given some initial distribution of incomes, they may decide to support their poorer friends. We study the resulting non-cooperative transfer game. Our analysis highlights the importance of indirect gifts, where an agent gives to a friend because his friend himself has a friend in need. We uncover four main features of this interdependence. First, we show that there is a unique profile of incomes after transfers, for any network and any utility functions. Uniqueness in transfers holds on trees, but not on arbitrary networks. Second, there is no waste in transfers in equilibrium. In particular, transfers flow through indirect paths of highest altruistic strength. Third, a negative shock on one agent cannot benefit others and tends to affect socially closer agents first. In addition, an income redistribution that decreases inequality ex-ante can increase inequality ex-post. Fourth, altruistic networks decrease income inequality. In contrast, more altruistic or more homophilous networks can increase inequality. |
| Keywords: | Aix-Marseille University (Aix-Marseille School of Economics), CNRS & EHESS |
| Date: | 2013–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aim:wpaimx:1356&r=soc |
| By: | Manuel Förster (CORE - Université Catholique de Louvain et Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne); Ana Mauleon (CORE - Université Catholique de Louvain et CEREC - Université Saint-Louis - Bruxelles); Vincent Vannetelbosch (Università di Trento and LEM Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the role of manipulation in a model of opinion formation where agents have opinions about some common question of interest. Agents repeatedly communicate with their neighbors in the social network, can exert some effort to manipulate the trust of others, and update their opinions taking weighted averages of neighbors' opinions. The incentives to manipulate are given by the agents' preferences. We show that manipulation can modify the trust structure and lead to a connected society, and thus, make the society reaching a consensus. Manipulation fosters opinion leadership, but the manipulated agent may even gain influence on the long-run opinions. In sufficiently homophilic societies, manipulation accelerates (slows down) convergence if it decreases (increases) homophily. Finally, we investigate the tension between information aggregation and spread of misinformation. We find that if the ability of the manipulating agent is weak and the agents underselling (overselling) their information gain (lose) overall influence, then manipulation reduces misinformation and agents converge jointly to more accurate opinions about some underlying true state. |
| Keywords: | Social networks, trust, manipulation, opinion leadership, consensus, Wisdom of crowds. |
| JEL: | D83 D85 Z13 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:cesdoc:13065&r=soc |
| By: | Elaine M. Liu; Juanjuan Meng; Joseph Tao-yi Wang |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how Confucianism affects individual decision making in Taiwan and in China. We found that Chinese subjects in our experiments became less accepting of Confucian values, such that they became significantly more risk loving, less loss averse, and more impatient after being primed with Confucianism, whereas Taiwanese subjects became significantly less present-based and were inclined to be more trustworthy 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. |
| JEL: | C91 Z10 |
| Date: | 2013–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19615&r=soc |
| By: | Claudia Olivetti; Eleonora Patacchini; Yves Zenou |
| Abstract: | This paper explores a novel mechanism of gender identity formation. Specifically, we explore how the work behavior of a teenager's own mother, as well as that of her friends' mothers, affect her work decisions in adulthood. The first mechanism is commonly included in economic models. The second, which in social psychology is also emphasized as an important factor in gender identity formation, has so far been overlooked. Accordingly, our key theoretical innovation is how the utility function is modeled. It is assumed that an adult woman's work decisions are influenced by her own mother's choices as well as her friends' mothers' choices when she was a teenager, and the interaction between the two. The empirical salience of this behavioral model is tested using a network model specification together with the longitudinal structure of the AddHealth data set. We find that both intergenerational channels positively affect a woman's work hours in adulthood, but the cross effect is negative, indicating the existence of cultural substitutability. That is, the mother's role model effect is larger the more distant she is (in terms of working hours) from the friends' mothers. |
| JEL: | J22 Z13 |
| Date: | 2013–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19610&r=soc |