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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
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Issue of 2016‒11‒06
thirteen papers chosen by Fabio Sabatini Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Paolo Pinotti (Bocconi University) |
| Abstract: | We estimate the e ect of immigrant legalization on the crime rate of immigrants in Italy by exploiting an ideal regression discontinuity design: fixed quotas of residence permits are available each year, applications must be submitted electronically on specific 'Click Days', and are processed on a first-come, first-served basis until the available quotas are exhausted. Matching data on applications with individual- level criminal records, we show that legalization reduces the crime rate of legalized immigrants by 0.6 percentage points on average, on a baseline crime rate of 1.1 percent. |
| Keywords: | legal status, crime, regression discontinuity design |
| JEL: | J61 K37 K42 |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:1625&r=soc |
| By: | Alice Hsiaw (Brandeis University); Ing-Haw Cheng (Brandeis University) |
| Abstract: | Individuals often must learn about a state of the world when both the state and the credibility of information sources (experts) are uncertain. We argue that learning in these "rank-deficient" environments may be subject to a bias that leads agents to over-infer expert quality. Agents who encounter information or experts in different order disagree about substance because they endogenously disagree about the credibility of each others' experts, as first impressions about experts have long-lived influences on beliefs about the state. This arises even though agents share common priors, information, and biases, providing a theory for the origins of disagreement. Our theory helps explain why disagreement about substance and expert credibility often go hand-in-hand and is hard to resolve in a wide-range of issues where agents share common information, including economics, climate change, and medicine. |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:brd:wpaper:110&r=soc |
| By: | Julie L. Hotchkiss; Anil Rupasingha |
| Abstract: | We make use of predicted social and civic activities (social capital) to account for selection into "social" occupations. Individual selection accounts for more than the total difference in wages observed between social and non-social occupations. The role that individual social capital plays in selecting into these occupations and the importance of selection in explaining wage differences across occupations is similar for both men and women. We make use of restricted 2000 Decennial Census and 2000 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey. Individual social capital is instrumented by distance weighted surrounding census tract characteristics. |
| Keywords: | social capital, wage differentials, occupational choice, switching regression, non-public data, factor analysis |
| JEL: | J31 J24 C34 |
| Date: | 2016–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:16-46&r=soc |
| By: | van Ham, Maarten (Delft University of Technology); Tammaru, Tiit (University of Tartu); de Vuijst, Elise (Delft University of Technology); Zwiers, Merle (Delft University of Technology) |
| Abstract: | Income inequality is increasing in European cities and this rising inequality has a spatial footprint in cities and neighbourhoods. Poor and rich people are increasingly living separated and this can threaten the social sustainability of cities. Low income people, often with an ethnic minority background, can get cut off from important social networks and mainstream society, and this can lead to social unrest. Increasing inequality and socio-economic segregation is therefore a major concern for local and national governments. Socio-economic segregation is the outcome of a combination of inequality and poverty, and the spatial organisation of urban housing markets. Poverty, and living in poverty concentration neighbourhoods is transmitted between generations and neighbourhood poverty is reproduced over time through to the residential mobility behaviour of households. Urban policy often focusses on reducing segregation through physical measures in cities, such as demolishing houses in deprived neighbourhoods and replacing them with housing for the middle classes. Such policies will not solve the underlying causes of segregation, but only redistribute poverty over cities. Policy initiatives should first of all focus on reducing inequality by creating equal opportunities for people and invest in education and training. Inclusive growth strategies should combine both people-based and area-based policy measures. |
| Keywords: | socio-economic segregation, neighbourhood change, cities, Europe, residential mobility, social mobility, intergenerational mobility |
| JEL: | D63 D64 I32 J62 P36 P46 R23 |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10277&r=soc |
| By: | Andersson Joona, Pernilla (SOFI, Stockholm University); Lanninger, Alma W. (SOFI, Stockholm University); Sundström, Marianne (SOFI, Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we evaluate the Swedish Establishment Reform, carried out in 2010 with the goal of speeding up the establishment of refugees and their family. From December 1, 2010 the reform transferred the responsibility for the integration of newly‐arrived refugees from the municipalities to the government funded Public Employment Service through which those eligible should get establishment talks, individual plans and coaches. The Reform was motivated by concern over the low employment level and slow integration of refugees. Our approach is to compare the outcomes of the Treatment group, which took part in establishment activities and arrived between December 1, 2010 and December 31, 2011, to those of the Comparison group, which arrived in the eleven months preceding the Reform and participated in municipal introduction programs, controlling for a rich set of observables, including country of birth and month of residence permit. Outcomes are measured in terms of employment and earnings in 2012, 2013 and 2014 for the Treatment group and in 2011, 2012 and 2013 for the Comparison group. Our data comes from registers held by Statistics Sweden and covers all immigrants. The results suggest positive and significant effects of the Reform. In the second year after program‐start the Treatment group had about 5.7 percent higher probability of employment and in the third year about 7.5 percent higher. The effects on earnings were larger, about 20 percent higher earnings for the Treatment group after the second year and about 22 percent higher after the third year. |
| Keywords: | integration, refugees, labor market policy, treatment effect, employment, earnings, caseworkers |
| JEL: | J15 J61 J68 |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10307&r=soc |
| By: | Lindquist, Matthew J. (SOFI, Stockholm University); Sol, Joeri (University of Amsterdam); van Praag, Mirjam C. (Copenhagen Business School); Vladasel, Theodor (Copenhagen Business School) |
| Abstract: | Promoting entrepreneurship has become an increasingly important part of the policy agenda in many countries. The success of such policies, however, rests in part on the assumption that entrepreneurship outcomes are not fully determined at a young age by factors that are unrelated to current policy. We test this assumption and assess the importance of family background and neighborhood effects as determinants of entrepreneurship, by estimating sibling correlations in entrepreneurship. We find that between 20 and 50 percent of the variance in different entrepreneurial outcomes is explained by factors that siblings share (i.e., family background and neighborhood effects). The average is 28 percent. Hence, entrepreneurship is far less than fully determined at a young age. Our estimates increase only a little when allowing for differential treatment within families by gender and birth order. We then investigate a comprehensive set of mechanisms that explain sibling similarities. Parental entrepreneurship plays a large role in explaining sibling similarities, as do shared genes. We show that neighborhood effects matter, but are rather small, particularly when compared with the overall importance of family factors. Sibling peer effects, and parental income and education matter even less. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship, family background, intergenerational persistence, neighborhood effects, occupational choice, sibling correlations |
| JEL: | D13 J62 L26 |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10278&r=soc |
| By: | Catherine Deri-Armstrong (Department of Economics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON); Rose Anne Devlin (Department of Economics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON); Forough Seifi (Department of Economics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON) |
| Abstract: | Formal volunteering takes place on behalf of charitable or non-profit organizations. While the physical presence of these organizations is usually required for citizens who want to volunteer, the physical presence of charitable organizations varies from neighbourhood to neighbourhood. Until now, no one has examined the role of charity proximity on volunteer decisions. In this paper we use information on the location of registered charities in Canada merged with survey information on the location of individuals and their volunteering decisions to examine how the physical proximity of charities (‘Access’) affects volunteer behaviour. Careful attention is paid to the possibility that the measure of access might be endogenous: organizations and volunteers may respond to the same unobservable factors when deciding where to locate. Our results imply that access does matter for the decision to volunteer as well as for the amount of time devoted to volunteering: increasing the number of charitable organizations within a one-kilometre buffer around an individual’s place of residence by 1% increases the predicted probability of volunteering by 0.9%. We find that the impact of an additional charity on the likelihood of volunteering decreases with distance to the individual’s residence, suggesting that the location of charities, indeed, matters when it comes to influencing volunteering behavior. |
| Keywords: | Volunteer, Geo-coding, Endogeneity, Proximity to charities, Charitable organizations |
| JEL: | R12 H49 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ott:wpaper:1615e&r=soc |
| By: | Johannes VAN DER POL |
| Abstract: | The main objective of this paper is to offer an analytical review of the literature focusing on the link between collaboration and performance. More precisely, the paper analyses the impact the position of the firm in the network has on the performance of the firm. Evolving in an innovation network implies that the firm is exposed to knowledge flows from collaborators. They are also exposed to the diffusion of their reputation through their partners. This document summarizes the different factors that have an impact on the manner in which firms can profit from their network and how, in their turn, they can impact the network. |
| Keywords: | Innovation networks ; Performance ; Knowledge ; Collaboration |
| JEL: | L14 D83 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grt:wpegrt:2016-23&r=soc |
| By: | Michel Grabisch (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics); Agnieszka Rusinowska (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | We present an application of lattice theory to the framework of influence in social networks. The contribution of the paper is not to derive new results, but to synthesize our existing results on lattices and influence. We consider a two-action model of influence in a social network in which agents have to make their yes-no decision on a certain issue. Every agent is preliminarily inclined to say either 'yes' or 'no', but due to influence by others, the agent's decision may be different from his original inclination. We discuss the relation between two central concepts of this model: influence function and follower function. The structure of the set of all influence functions that lead to a given follower function appears to be a distributive lattice. We also consider a dynamic model of influence based on aggregation functions and present a general analysis of convergence in the model. Possible terminal classes to which the process of influence may converge are terminal states (the consensus states and non trivial states), cyclic terminal classes and unions of Boolean lattices. |
| Keywords: | convergence,terminal class,aggregation function,Influence function,follower function,distributive lattice |
| Date: | 2015–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00977005&r=soc |
| By: | Stanislao Gualdi (Ecole Centrale Supélec - Laboratoire MAS); Antoine Mandel (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne - Paris School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the interplay between technological change and macroeconomic dynamics in an agent-based model of the formation of production networks. On the one hand, production networks form the structure that determines economic dynamics in the short run. On the other hand, their evolution reflects the long-term impacts of competition and innovation on the economy. We account for process innovation via increasing variety in the input mix and hence increasing connectivity in the network. In turn, product innovation induces a direct growth of the firm's productivity and the potential destruction of links. The interplay between both processes generate complex technological dynamics in which phases of process and product innovation successively dominate. The model reproduces a wealth of stylized facts about industrial dynamics and technological progress, in particular the persistence of heterogeneity among firms and Wright's law for the growth of productivity within a technological paradigm. We illustrate the potential of the model for the analysis of industrial policy via a preliminary set of policy experiments in which we investigate the impact on innovators' success of feed-in tariffs and of priority market access |
| Keywords: | Production network; Network formation; Scale-free networks; Firms demographics; distribution of firms' size; Zipf law; General equilibrium; monopolistic competition; disequilibrium |
| JEL: | D57 D85 L16 |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:cesdoc:16054&r=soc |
| By: | Elizabeth Gooch (USDA Economics Research); Jorge Martinez-Vazquez (International Center for Public Policy. Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University); Bauyrzhan Yedgenov (Department of Economics, International Center for Public Policy. Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University) |
| Abstract: | This paper reexamines the causal link between institutional quality and economic development using "Malaria Endemicity" as an instrument for institutions. This instrument is superior to the previously used instruments in the literature which suffered from measurement error, including "settler mortality." Because the Malaria Endemicity measure captures the malaria environment before the discovery that mosquitoes transmit the disease and before the successful eradication efforts that followed, it is exogenous to both institutional quality and economic development. We find Malaria Endemicity a valid strong instrument which yields larger significant effects of institutions on economic development than those obtained in the previous literature. |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper1610&r=soc |
| By: | Lopez Arceiz, Francisco; Solferino, Nazaria; Solferino, Viviana; Tortia, Ermanno C. |
| Abstract: | In order to devise a new cost-benefit function, in this work we apply in a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) context the electro-magnetism geometrical model of the Möbius Strip, which analyzes how the moves of electrons produce energy. Similarly to the case of electrons tunneling in the strip, we highlight three positive crossed effects on firm performance originating from: i) cooperation within the same group of stakeholders; ii) cooperation between different groups of stakeholders; iii) stakeholders' loyalty towards the company. By applying this new cost-benefit function to a firms' decision making processes we evidence that investing in CSR activities is always convenient depending on the number of stakeholder groups, on stakeholders' sensitivity to CSR investments and on the decay rate to alienation. We test these findings through Structural Equation Modelling by exploiting a unique dataset including data on 4135 workers in a matched sample of 320 Italian social enterprises. Results show that CSR is, in all specifications of the model, the strongest determinant of firm performance in terms of improvement in service quality and worker achieved professional and personal growth. Direct effects of CSR on performance are added to indirect effects mediated by cooperation and reduced worker alienation in terms of higher job satisfaction. |
| Keywords: | Corporate social responsibility, Econophysics, Firm Behavior, Structural Equations Modelling |
| JEL: | C3 D21 L13 Z1 |
| Date: | 2016–10–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:74776&r=soc |
| By: | Ryan R. Brady (United States Naval Academy); Michael Insler (United States Naval Academy); Ahmed S. Rahman (United States Naval Academy) |
| Abstract: | Existing peer e ects studies produce contradictory findings, including positive, negative, large, and small effects, despite similar contexts. We reconcile these results using U.S. Naval Academy data covering a 22-year history of the random assignment of students to peer groups. Coupled with students' limited discretion over freshman-year courses, our setting affords an opportunity to better understand peer effects in different social networks. We find negative effects at the broader "company" level--students' social and residential group--and positive effects at the narrower course-company level. We suggest that peer spillovers change direction because of differences in the underlying mechanism of peer infl uence. |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usn:usnawp:51&r=soc |