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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
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Issue of 2016‒05‒14
twelve papers chosen by Fabio Sabatini Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Gautam Rao; Stefano DellaVigna; John List; Ulrike Malmendier |
| Abstract: | We design a model-based field experiment to estimate the nature and magnitude of workers' social references towards their employers. We hire 446 workers for a one-time task. Within worker, we vary (i) piece rates; (ii) whether the work has payoffs only for the worker, or also for the employer; and (iii) the return to the employer. We then introduce a surprise increase or decrease in pay (`gifts') from the employer. We find that workers have substantial baseline social preferences towards their employers, even in the absence of repeated-game incentives. Consistent with models of warm glow or social norms, but not of pure altruism, workers exert substantially more effort when their work is consequential to their employer, but are insensitive to the precise return to the employer. Turning to reciprocity, we find little evidence of a response to unexpected positive (or negative) gifts from the employer. Our structural estimates of the social preferences suggest that, if anything, positive reciprocity in response to monetary `gifts' may be larger than negative reciprocity. We revisit the results of previous field experiments on gift exchange using our model and derive a one-parameter expression for the implied reciprocity in these experiments. |
| Date: | 2016–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qsh:wpaper:396911&r=soc |
| By: | Xue, Xindong; Mo, Erxiao; Reed, W. Robert |
| Abstract: | This paper uses the 2005 and 2006 China General Social Survey (CGSS) to study the relationship between social capital and health in China. It is the most comprehensive analysis of this subject to date, both in the sizes of the samples it analyses, in the number of social capital variables it investigates, and in its treatment of endogeneity. The authors identify social trust, social relationships, and social networks as important determinants of self-reported health. The magnitude of the estimated effects are economically important, in some cases being of the same size or larger than the effects associated with age and income. Their findings suggest that there is scope for social capital to be a significant policy tool for improving health outcomes in China. |
| Keywords: | social capital,trust,self-reported health,China,ordered probit regression,heteroskedastic ordered probit regression,interaction effects,endogeneity |
| JEL: | I1 I18 P25 O53 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:201613&r=soc |
| By: | Ani Harutyunyan (LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance at KU Leuven); Ömer Özak (Southern Methodist University) |
| Abstract: | This research explores the effects of culture on technological diffusion and economic development. It shows that culture's direct effects on development and barrier effects to technological diffusion are, in general, observationally equivalent. In particular, using a large set of cultural measures, it establishes empirically that pairwise differences in contemporary development are associated with pairwise cultural differences relative to the technological frontier, only in cases where observational equivalence holds. Additionally, it establishes that differences in cultural traits that are correlated with genetic and linguistic distances are statistically and economically significantly correlated with differences in economic development. These results highlight the difficulty of disentangling the direct and barrier effects of culture, while lending credence to the idea that common ancestry generates persistence and plays a central role in economic development. |
| Keywords: | Comparative economic development, economic growth, culture, barriers to technological diffusion, genetic distances, linguistic distances |
| JEL: | O10 O11 O20 O33 O40 O47 O57 Z10 |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smu:ecowpa:1606&r=soc |
| By: | Daron Acemoglu; Georgy Egorov; Konstantin Sonin |
| Abstract: | An influential thesis often associated with De Tocqueville views social mobility as a bulwark of democracy: when members of a social group expect to join the ranks of other social groups in the near future, they should have less reason to exclude these other groups from the political process. In this paper, we investigate this hypothesis using a dynamic model of political economy. As well as formalizing this argument, our model demonstrates its limits, elucidating a robust theoretical force making democracy less stable in societies with high social mobility: when the median voter expects to move up (respectively down), she would prefer to give less voice to poorer (respectively richer) social groups. Our theoretical analysis shows that in the presence of social mobility, the political preferences of an individual depend on the potentially conflicting preferences of her “future selves,” and that the evolution of institutions is determined through the implicit interaction between occupants of the same social niche at different points in time. When social mobility is endogenized, our model identifies new political economic forces limiting the amount of mobility in society – because the middle class will lose out from mobility at the bottom and because a peripheral coalition between the rich and the poor may oppose mobility at the top. |
| JEL: | D71 D74 |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22174&r=soc |
| By: | Nicola Cortinovis; Jing Xiao; Ron Boschma; Frank van Oort |
| Abstract: | Industrial diversification is considered crucial for economies to prosper. Recent studies have shown that regional economies tend to diversify into sectors that are related to those already present in the region. However, no study yet has investigated the impact of regional institutions. The objective of the paper is to bring together the literatures on related diversification and institutions by analyzing how formal and informal institutions influence regional diversification. Analyzing 118 European regions in the period 2004 and 2012, we find evidence that institutions matter for regions to diversify into new industries. Bridging social capital is a key driver of regional diversification, in addition to relatedness, in contrast to quality of government in regions. Bonding social capital has a negative impact in regions with a low quality of government. This suggests that regional institutions relevant for structural change in regions are predominantly informal in character rather than formal, and bridging rather than bonding. |
| Keywords: | regional diversification, social capital, quality of government, institutions |
| JEL: | R11 O14 |
| Date: | 2016–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1610&r=soc |
| By: | Ennio Bilancini; Leonardo Boncinelli; Jiabin Wu |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the emergence of cooperation in a heterogeneous population. The population is divided into two cultural groups. Agents in the population are randomly matched in pairs to engage in a prisoner dilemma. The matching process is assortative, that is, cooperators are more likely to be matched with cooperators, defectors are more likely to be matched with defectors. When two agents of different cultures are matched, they suffer a cost due to their cultural differences. We call such a cost cultural aversion. We find that when cultural aversion is sufficiently strong, perfect correlation between culture and behavior emerges: all agents from one cultural group cooperate, while all agents from the other cultural group defect. |
| Keywords: | prisoner dilemma, assortativity, cultural aversion, cooperation, type-monomorphic. |
| JEL: | C72 C73 Z10 |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mod:recent:121&r=soc |
| By: | Héctor Pifarre i Arolas (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany) |
| Abstract: | Since its initial formulation by Ryder, the theory of demographic metabolism has developed into a fully quantitative theory and has been applied to a variety of subjects, ranging from political attitudes to social values. There is little doubt that the replacement of cohorts is a motor of social transformation, but how much does it contribute in relation to other forces of social change? I discuss some of the methodological aspects of the assessment of the relative magnitude of demographic metabolism using the trends of trust among individuals in the United States. A meta-analysis of the results of a variety of well-established models and techniques in demography and economics confirms the key importance of the process of cohort replacement on both the levels and trends of trust. |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2016–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2016-003&r=soc |
| By: | Quoc-Anh Do; Kieu-Trang Nguyen; Anh N. Tran Roiser; Anh N. Tran |
| Abstract: | We study patronage politics in authoritarian Vietnam, using an exhaustive panel of 603 ranking officials from 2000 to 2010 to estimate their promotions’ impact on infrastructure in their hometowns of patrilineal ancestry. Native officials’ promotions lead to a broad range of hometown infrastructure improvement. Hometown favoritism is pervasive across all ranks, even among officials without budget authority, except among elected legislators. Favors are narrowly targeted towards small communes that have no political power, and are strengthened with bad local governance and strong local family values. The evidence suggests a likely motive of social preferences for hometown. |
| Keywords: | Favoritism; patronage; authoritarian regime; political connection; hometown; infrastructure; disruptive politics |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2016–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:66422&r=soc |
| By: | Gil S. Epstein (Bar-Ilan University, IZA, CReAM and Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano); Odelia Heizler (Cohen) (Tel-Aviv_Yaffo Academic College) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we examine possible types of network formation among immigrants in the diaspora and between those immigrants and the locals in different countries. We present the model by considering different possible interactions between immigrants and the new society in their host country. Spread of migrants from the same origin in the diaspora may well increase international trade between the different countries, depending on the types of networks formed. We present possible applications of network structure on the country of origin, such as on international trade. We find that when the size of the diaspora is sufficiently large, the natives in the different countries will be willing to bear the linking cost with the immigrants because the possible benefits increase with increasing size of the diaspora. |
| Keywords: | Immigrants, Networks, Diaspora |
| JEL: | D85 D74 J61 L14 |
| Date: | 2016–05–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csl:devewp:389&r=soc |
| By: | Rossi, Federica; Caloffi, Annalisa; Russo, Margherita |
| Abstract: | An important, but under-researched, question in relation to policies funding networks of innovators is: what kind of innovation networks should be supported, if the policy objective is not just to sponsor successful innovation projects, but also to encourage the participants to form networks with desirable characteristics? Focusing on a set of policy programmes implemented by the regional government of Tuscany, in Italy, between 2002 and 2008, aimed at funding networks of collaborating organisations, we investigate whether the imposition of requirements on the composition of the networks that would be eligible for funding – in particular, the demand that networks should comply with minimum size and heterogeneity thresholds – influenced the participants’ networking behaviour in the context of successive policy interventions. Our results show that these requirements immediately affected the size and composition of the project networks that applied for funding, although not always in the intended direction. However, these effects did not extend to the successive periods, when those requirements were no longer in force. This suggests that the imposition of policy requirements, per se, is unlikely to induce persistent changes in organizations’ networking behaviour. Other approaches such as implementing outreach actions in order to encourage new organisations to participate in existing innovation networks and to form new ones, and additional measures designed to foster learning opportunities for the participants, might be more effective tools to influence the networking behaviour of participating organisations. |
| Keywords: | Innovation networks, innovation policy, policy requirements, networking behaviour, behavioural effects of policy |
| JEL: | O31 R5 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:69327&r=soc |
| By: | Guerriero, Carmine |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the relative importance of a "culture of cooperation," understood as the implicit reward from cooperating in prisoner's dilemma and investment types of activities, and "inclusive political institutions," which enable the citizenry to check the executive authority. I divide Europe into 120 km X 120 km grid cells, and I exploit exogenous variation in both institutions driven by persistent medieval history. To elaborate, I document strong first-stage relationships between present-day norms of trust and respect and the severity of consumption risk-i.e., climate volatility-over the 1000-1600 period and between present-day regional political autonomy and the factors that raised the returns on elite-citizenry investments in the Middle Ages, i.e., the terrain ruggedness and the direct access to the coast. Using this instrumental variables approach, I show that only culture has a first order effect on development, even after controlling for country fixed effects, medieval innovations, the present-day role of medieval geography, and the factors modulating the impact of institutions. Crucially, the excluded instruments have no direct impact on development, and the effect of culture holds within pairs of adjacent grid cells with different medieval climate volatility. An explanation for these results is that culture, but not a more inclusive political process, is necessary to produce public-spirited politicians and push voters to punish political malfeasance. Micro-evidence from Italian Parliament data supports this idea. |
| Keywords: | Geography; Culture; Democracy; Development; Political Accountability. |
| JEL: | D7 H1 O1 Z1 |
| Date: | 2013–07–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:70879&r=soc |
| By: | Stefano Gagliarducci; Marco Manacorda |
| Abstract: | In this paper we investigate the effect of family connections to politicians on individuals' labor market outcomes. We combine data for Italy over almost three decades from longitudinal social security records on a random sample of around 1 million private sector employees with the universe of around 500,000 individuals ever holding political office, and we exploit information available in both datasets on a substring of each individual's last name and municipality of birth in order to identify family ties. Using a diff-in-diff analysis that follows individuals as their family members enter and leave office, and correcting for the measurement error induced by our fuzzy matching method, we estimate that the monetary return to having a politician in the family is around 3.5 percent worth of private sector earnings and that each politician is able to extract rents for his family worth between one fourth and one full private sector job per year. The effect of nepotism is long lasting, extending well beyond the period in office. Consistent with the view that this is a technology of rent appropriation on the part of politicians, the effect increases with politicians' clout and with the resources available in the administration where they serve. |
| Keywords: | nepotism, family connections, politics, rent appropriation |
| JEL: | D72 D73 H72 J24 J30 M51 |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1422&r=soc |