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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
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Issue of 2016‒04‒16
twelve papers chosen by Fabio Sabatini Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Sergio Currarini; Jesse Matheson; Fernando Vega Redondo |
| Abstract: | Biases in meeting opportunities have been recently shown to play a key role for the emergence of homophily in social networks (see Currarini, Jackson and Pin 2009). The aim of this paper is to provide a simple microfoundation of these biases in a model where the size and typecomposition of the meeting pools are shaped by agents' socialization decisions. In particular, agents either inbreed (direct search only to similar types) or outbreed (direct search to population at large). When outbreeding is costly, this is shown to induce stark equilibrium behavior of a threshold type: agents \inbreed" (i.e. mostly meet their own type) if, and only if, their group is above certain size. We show that this threshold equilibrium generates patterns of in-group and cross-group ties that are consistent with empirical evidence of homophily in two paradigmatic instances: high school friendships and interethnic marriages. |
| Keywords: | Homophily, social networks, segregation. |
| JEL: | D7 D71 D85 Z13 |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lec:leecon:16/05&r=soc |
| By: | Jaime Torres, Mónica Marcela (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Carlsson, Fredrik (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates direct and spillover effects of a social information campaign aimed at encouraging residential water savings in Colombia. The campaign was organized as a randomized field experiment, consisting of monthly delivery of consumption reports, including normative messages, for one year. Results indicate that social information and appeals to normbased behavior reduce water use by up to 6.8% in households directly targeted by the campaign. In addition, we find evidence of spillover effects: households that were not targeted by the campaign reduced water use by 5.8% in the first six months following the intervention. Nevertheless, neither direct nor spillover effects can be attributed to social networks for any of our chosen proxies of social and geographic proximity. |
| Keywords: | Peer effects; social norms; randomized evaluation; water utilities |
| JEL: | C93 D03 L95 O12 |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0652&r=soc |
| By: | Andreas Steinmayr |
| Abstract: | An important concern about the surge in the number of refugees arriving in Europe is increased support for far-right, nationalist, anti-immigration parties. This paper studies a natural experiment in an Austrian federal state to identify the causal effect of exposure to refugees in the neighborhood on the support for the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). In the Upper Austria state election in September 2015 the FPÖ doubled its vote share with a fierce anti-asylum campaign. Since only 42 percent of Upper Austrian communities hosted refugees at the time of the election, direct exposure to refugees varied at the local level. To account for the potential endogeneity in the distribution of refugees, I use pre-existing group accommodations as instrumental variable. To cope with the sudden inflow of large numbers of refugees, these buildings were used for refugee accommodation and thus strongly increase the probability of refugee presence in the community. In line with the contact hypothesis I find that hosting refugees in the community dampens the positive overall trend and decreases FPÖ support by 4.42 percentage points in state elections. Further analysis using exit poll data reveals a positive effect on the optimism in the population that the integration of refugees can be managed. Placebo tests show that there were no effects in elections prior to 2015. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, refugees, political economy, voting |
| Date: | 2016–03–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wfo:wpaper:y:2016:i:514&r=soc |
| By: | Uslaner, Eric; yamamura, Eiji |
| Abstract: | We show how disasters influence subjective political trust by testing the effect of the 2011 Great East Japan. For this test, we used the individual level data of 7 Asian covering the period before and after the disaster. The key findings are: the disaster lead to sharp drops in trust of the national government, trust in the Prime Minister, trust in political parties, and trust in the parliament. However, we do not find a loss of support in local governments. |
| Keywords: | Political trust; Natural disaster; Nuclear accident |
| JEL: | H84 J28 Q54 |
| Date: | 2016–04–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:70527&r=soc |
| By: | Matthew Roskruge (University of Waikato); Jacques Poot (University of Waikato); Laura King (University of Waikato) |
| Abstract: | Both migrant entrepreneurship and social capital are topics which have attracted a great deal of attention. However, relatively little econometric analysis has been done on their interrelationship. In this paper we first consider the relationship between social capital and the prevalence of entrepreneurship. We also investigate the relationship between social capital and the living standards of entrepreneurs. In both cases we ask whether these interrelationships differ between migrants and comparable native-born people. We utilize unit record data from the pooled 2008, 2010 and 2012 New Zealand General Social Surveys (NZGSS). The combined sample consists of 15,541 individuals who are in the labour force. Entrepreneurs are defined as those in the sample who obtained income from self-employment or from owning a business. Social capital is proxied by responses to questions on social networks, volunteering and sense of community. The economic standard of living is measured by either personal income or by an Economic Living Standards Index (ELSI) score developed by the New Zealand Ministry of Social Development. We find significant differences between migrants and the native born in terms of the attributes of social capital that are correlated with entrepreneurship, but volunteering matters equally for both groups. The positive association between social capital attributes and ELSI scores is similar between migrant and natives. Social capital contributes little to explaining incomes of either group. |
| Keywords: | migration, social capital, entrepreneurship, income, standard of living |
| JEL: | F22 J15 L26 Z13 |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:1607&r=soc |
| By: | Piekalkiewicz, Marcin |
| Abstract: | Are unhappiness, high concern for money and scarcity of social capital different faces of the same phenomenon? Economists tend to treat these variables as distinct correlates of well-being. On the contrary, positive psychologists argue that they all relate to materialism, a system of personal values ascribing great importance in life to extrinsic motivations and low priority to intrinsic motivations. Using data from two European cross-sectional surveys and the German Socio-Economic Panel, I test the hypothesis that material interests, proxied by the effects of individual and reference income on well-being, are associated with low levels of social capital. The results suggest that people with scarce social capital tend to have greater material interests, whereas the negative effect of income comparisons on well-being is eliminated for individuals exhibiting the highest levels of social capital. The implication of such finding is that promoting social capital reduces people's material concerns and has positive impact on their well-being. The results from a country-level analysis additionally show that, since social capital moderates the importance of income for well-being on individual level, the well-being gap between income groups is significantly smaller in countries with higher social capital. |
| Keywords: | subjective well-being,life satisfaction,social capital,materialism,relative income,social comparisons,happiness inequality |
| JEL: | D31 I31 Z13 |
| Date: | 2016–03–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:130185&r=soc |
| By: | Bergh, Andreas (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)); Bjørnskov, Christian (Aarhus University) |
| Abstract: | High levels of social trust has been linked to both public sector size and long term economic growth, thereby helping to explain how some countries are able to combine high taxes and relatively high levels of economic growth. This paper examines if social trust as a background factor also insulates countries against negative effects of public sector size on growth, as government size and growth are found to be negatively associated in several recent studies. We note that the effect is theoretically ambiguous. In panel data from 66 countries across 40 years, we find little robust evidence of insulating effects. Instead we find robust evidence that high trust aggravates the crowding out effects of public sector size on private investments. |
| Keywords: | Tust; Economic growth; Government consumption |
| JEL: | H10 O11 P16 Z10 |
| Date: | 2016–03–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1119&r=soc |
| By: | Shun Wang (Korea Development Institute (KDI) School of Public Policy and Management, 263 Nansojeong-ro, Sejong, Korea); Weina Zhou (Department of Economics, Dalhousie University, 6214 University Avenue, Halifax, NS, Canada) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses the China General Social Survey (CGSS) 2003 to evaluate the long-term consequences of a forced migration, the state’s “send-down” movement (shang shan xia xiang, or up to the mountains, down to the villages) during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, on individuals’ nonmaterial well-being. The send-down program resettled over 16 million urban youths to the countryside to carry out hard manual labor over the years 1968-1978. Most of them were allowed to return to urban areas when the Cultural Revolution ended. We find that those who had the send-down experience have worse marriage outcome, lower-quality social network, and lower level of happiness than their non-send-down counterparts. The negative effects of the forced migration are robust against a detailed set of family backgrounds and personal characteristics. |
| Keywords: | Send-down movement, Forced migration, Marriage, Social network, Happiness |
| JEL: | I31 J12 J18 J61 |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hic:wpaper:213&r=soc |
| By: | Kosse, Fabian (University of Bonn); Deckers, Thomas (University of Bonn); Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah (University of Bonn); Falk, Armin (University of Bonn) |
| Abstract: | This study presents descriptive and causal evidence on the role of social environment for the formation of prosociality. In a first step, we show that socio-economic status (SES) as well as the intensity of mother-child interaction and mothers’ prosocial attitudes are systematically related to elementary school children’s prosociality. In a second step, we present evidence on a randomly assigned variation of the social environment, providing children with a mentor for the duration of one year. Our data include a two-year follow-up and reveal a significant and persistent increase in prosociality in the treatment relative to the control group. Moreover, enriching the social environment bears the potential to close the observed developmental gap in prosociality between low and high SES children. Our findings suggest that the program serves as a substitute for prosocial stimuli in the family environment. |
| Keywords: | social preferences, prosociality, formation of preferences, trust, social inequality |
| JEL: | D64 C90 |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9861&r=soc |
| By: | Natalia BORZINO (University of East Anglia); Enrique FATAS (University of East Anglia); Emmanuel PETERLE (CRESE EA3190 Univ. Bourgogne Franche-Comté) |
| Abstract: | We conduct a controlled laboratory experiment to investigate trust and trustworthiness in a networked investment game in which two senders interact with a receiver. We investigate to what extent senders and receivers comply with an exogenous and non-binding recommendation. We also manipulate the level of information available to senders regarding receiver’s behavior in the network. We compare a baseline treatment in which senders are only informed about the actions and outcomes of their own investment games to two information treatments. In the reputation treatment, senders receive ex ante information regarding the average amount returned by the receiver in the previous period. In the transparency treatment, each sender receives ex post additional information regarding the returning decision of the receiver to the other sender in the network. Across all treatments and for both senders and receivers, the non-binding rule has a significant and positive impact on individual decisions. Providing senders with additional information regarding receiver’s behavior affects trust at the individual level, but leads to mixed results at the aggregate level. Our findings suggest that reputation building, as well as allowing for social comparison could be efficient ways for receivers to improve trust within networks. |
| Keywords: | Experimental economics, Taxation, Trust, Information, Investment game. |
| JEL: | C72 C91 D03 H26 |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crb:wpaper:2016-04&r=soc |
| By: | Sandro Casal (University of Milan); Francesco Fallucchi (University of East Anglia); Simone Quercia (University of Bonn) |
| Abstract: | We conduct an experiment to investigate the acceptable boundaries of immoral behavior in barganing situations. We find that subjects are willing to punish at their own cost only an extremely immoral action of their counterpart that affects a third party. However, the possibility to nullify the negative effects of the immoral action and to restore the ex-ante situation for the third party increases the willingness to punish. |
| Keywords: | mini ultimatum game, morals |
| JEL: | C72 C91 D6 |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uea:wcbess:16-05&r=soc |
| By: | Bauer, Michal (CERGE-EI); Fiala, Nathan (University of Connecticut); Levely, Ian (Charles University in Prague) |
| Abstract: | We use a set of experiments to study the effects of forced military service for a rebel group on social capital. We examine the case of Northern Uganda, where recruits did not selfselect nor were systematically screened by rebels. We find that individual cooperativeness robustly increases with length of soldiering, especially among those who soldiered during early age. Parents of ex-soldiers are aware of the behavioral difference: they trust exsoldiers more and expect them to be more trustworthy. These results suggest that the impact of child soldiering on social capital, in contrast to human capital, is not necessarily detrimental. |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zwi:wpaper:31&r=soc |