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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
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Issue of 2017‒09‒03
ten papers chosen by Fabio Sabatini Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Depetris-Chauvín, Emilio; Durante, Ruben |
| Abstract: | Do collective experiences that prime sentiments of national unity reduce inter-ethnic tensions and conflict? We examine this question by looking at the impact of national football teams' victories in sub-Saharan Africa. Combining individual survey data with information on official matches played between 2000 and 2015, we find that individuals interviewed in the days after a victory of their country's national team are less likely to report a strong sense of ethnic identity and more likely to trust people of other ethnicities than those interviewed just before. The effect is sizable and robust and is not explained by generic euphoria or optimism. Crucially, national victories do not only affect attitudes but also reduce violence. Indeed, using plausibly exogenous variation from close qualifications to the Africa Cup of Nations, we find that countries that (barely) qualified experience significantly less conflict in the following six months than countries that (barely) did not. Our findings indicate that, even where ethnic tensions have deep historical roots, patriotic shocks can reduce inter-ethnic tensions and have a tangible impact on conflict. |
| Keywords: | Africa; Ethnic Conflict; Ethnic identity; Football; Nationalism; Trust |
| Date: | 2017–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12233&r=soc |
| By: | Cettolin, Elena; Suetens, Sigrid |
| Abstract: | Trustworthiness is key for successful economic and social interactions. We conduct an experiment with a representative sample of the Dutch population to study whether trustworthiness depends on the ethnicity of the interaction partner. Native Dutch trustees play trust games with an anonymous other, who is either another native Dutch or an immigrant from non-Western descent. We find that the trustees reciprocate trust up to 13% less frequently if the trustor is a non-Western immigrant than if he/she is native Dutch. This percentage increases up to 23% for trustees who report disliking ethnic diversity in society in a survey that took place one year before the experiment. Since the decision to reciprocate does not involve behavioral risk, we take our results as evidence of taste-based discrimination. The implication is that the return on trust is lower for immigrants from non-Western descent than for native Dutch. |
| Keywords: | ethnic diversity; representative sample; taste-based discrimination; trust game; trustworthiness |
| JEL: | C72 C9 D01 J15 |
| Date: | 2017–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12244&r=soc |
| By: | Yann Bramoull\'e; Kenan Huremovi\'c |
| Abstract: | Connections appear to be helpful in many contexts such as obtaining a job, a promotion, a grant, a loan or publishing a paper. This may be due to favoritism or to information conveyed by connections. Attempts at identifying both effects have relied on measures of true quality, generally built from data collected long after promotion. This empirical strategy faces important limitations. Building on earlier work on discrimination, we propose a new method to identify favors and information from classical data collected at time of promotion. Under natural assumptions, we show that promotion decisions look more random for connected candidates, due to the information channel. We obtain new identification results and show how probit models with heteroscedasticity can be used to estimate the strength of the two effects. We apply our method to the data on academic promotions in Spain studied in Zinovyeva & Bagues (2015). We find evidence of both favors and information effects at work. Empirical results are consistent with evidence obtained from quality measures collected five years after promotion. |
| Date: | 2017–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1708.07723&r=soc |
| By: | Buechel, Berno; Mechtenberg, Lydia |
| Abstract: | We study private communication in social networks prior to a majority vote on two alternative policies. Some (or all) agents receive a private imperfect signal about which policy is correct. They can, but need not, recommend a policy to their neighbors in the social network prior to the vote. We show theoretically and empirically that communication can undermine efficiency of the vote and hence reduce welfare in a common interest setting. Both efficiency and existence of fully informative equilibria in which vote recommendations are always truthfully given and followed hinge on the structure of the communication network. If some voters have distinctly larger audiences than others, their neighbors should not follow their vote recommendation; however, they may do so in equilibrium. We test the model in a lab experiment and find strong support for the comparative-statics and, more generally, for the importance of the network structure for voting behavior. |
| Keywords: | Strategic Voting; Social Networks; Swing Voter’s Curse; Information Aggregation |
| JEL: | D72 D83 D85 C91 |
| Date: | 2017–07–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fri:fribow:fribow00485&r=soc |
| By: | Tobias Regner (Friedrich Schiller University of Jena); Paolo Crosetto (GAEL - Laboratoire d'Economie Appliquée de Grenoble - Grenoble INP - Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes) |
| Abstract: | Crowdfunding recently emerged as an alternative funding channel for start-ups, creative artists and social endeavors. On specialized web platforms, project creators ask the crowd for support and provide in return a set of rewards, modulated according to the amount of support pledged. Our study investigates the role of self- and social-image enhancing rewards in determining project success. Using data from 346 projects hosted by Startnext, the biggest crowdfunding platform in Germany, we show that providing higher shares of reward levels that let pledgers participate in and experience the project is correlated with project success. |
| Keywords: | social-image,self-image,reward levels,identity,crowdfunding,entrepreneurial finance,donations |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01527150&r=soc |
| By: | Eriksson, Tor (Aarhus School of Business); Smith, Nina (Aarhus University); Smith, Valdemar (Aarhus School of Business) |
| Abstract: | The dearth of women in top managerial positions is characterized by a high persistence and insensitivity to changes and differences in institutions and policies. This suggests it could be caused by slowly changing social norms and attitudes in the labor market, such as gender stereotypes and gender identity. This paper examines gender stereotypes and self-stereotyping in a large cross section of (about 2,970) managers at different job levels in (1,875) Danish private-sector firms. The survey data used contain detailed information about the managers as well as their employers. We find significant gender differences between managers with regard to gender stereotyping attitudes. Male managers on average tend to have stronger gender stereotype views with respect to the role as a successful manager than their female peers. However, female CEOs' gender stereotypes do not differ from their male peers' and have significantly more pronounced masculine stereotypes than female managers at lower levels. Female managers have stronger beliefs in their own managerial abilities regarding feminine skills and weaker beliefs in their masculine skills, whereas the opposite is observed for male managers. Gender stereotypes and self-stereotypes vary across types of managerial employees and firms. Beliefs in own ability could explain at most ten percent of the observed gender differential in C-level executive positions. |
| Keywords: | glass ceiling effects, gender, self-stereotypes, stereotypes, managerial labor markets |
| JEL: | J16 D83 D84 M51 |
| Date: | 2017–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10932&r=soc |
| By: | Faia, Ester; Paiella, Monica |
| Abstract: | Despite the lack of delegated monitor and of collateral guarantees P2P lending platforms exhibit relatively low loan and delinquency rates. The adverse selection is indeed mitigated by a new screening technology (information processing through machine learning) that provides costless public signals. Using data from Prosper and Lending Club we show that loans' spreads, proxing asymmetric information, decline with credit scores or hard information indicators and with indications from "group ties" (soft information from social networks). Also an increase in the risk of bank run in the traditional banking sector increases participation in the P2P markets and reduces their rates (substitution effect). We rationalize this evidence with a dynamic general equilibrium model where lenders and borrowers choose between traditional bank services (subject to the risk of bank runs and early liquidation) and P2P markets (which clear at a pooling price due to asymmetric information, but where public signals facilitate screening). |
| Keywords: | liquidity shocks; peer-to-peer lending; pooling equilibria; signals; value of information |
| JEL: | G11 G23 |
| Date: | 2017–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12235&r=soc |
| By: | Xin, Guangyi |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effect of social interaction on employment status and employment quality by using longitudinal data from BHPS (British Household Panel Survey). Active community membership is employed as the measurement of social Interaction. Various identification strategies provide robust evidence that a higher level of social interaction results in increased probability of being full-time employed. The effect of social interaction on employment status is also investigated among different gender groups and at different age stages. Moreover, three indices of social interaction have been constructed to capture the different dimension effect of social interaction on labour market outcome. As a result, active group memberships in professional organisations and sport clubs have the largest effect. Regarding employment quality, social interaction leads to a positive and significant effect on wages. This social interaction effect is also studied among different gender and occupation groups. |
| Keywords: | Social Capital; Social Interaction; Labour Market Outcome |
| JEL: | C1 J21 J31 J64 L14 |
| Date: | 2017–08–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:80976&r=soc |
| By: | Juarez, Ruben (Department of Economics, University of Hawaii); Ko, Chiu Yu (Department of Economics, National University of Singapore); Xue, Jingyi (School of Economics, Singapore Management University) |
| Abstract: | Consider a sequential process where agents have individual values at every possible step. A planner is in charge of selecting steps and distributing the accumulated aggregate values among agents. We model this process by a directed network where each edge is associated with a vector of individual values. This model applies to several new and existing problems, e.g., developing a connected public facility and distributing total values received by surrounding districts; selecting a long-term production plan and sharing final profits among partners of a firm; choosing a machine schedule to serve different tasks and distributing total outputs among task owners. Herein, we provide the first axiomatic study on path selection and value sharing in networks. We consider four sets of axioms from different perspectives, including those related to (1) the sequential consistency of assignments with respect to network decompositions; (2) the monotonicity of assignments with respect to network expansion; (3) the independence of assignments with respect to certain network transformations; and (4) implementation in the case where the planner has no information about the underlying network and individual values. Surprisingly, these four disparate sets of axioms characterize similar classes of solutions — selecting efficient path(s) and assigning to each agent a share of total values which is independent of their individual values. Furthermore, we characterize more general solutions that depend on individual values. |
| Keywords: | Sequential Values; Sharing; Network; Redistribution |
| JEL: | C72 D44 D71 D82 |
| Date: | 2016–12–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:smuesw:2017_003&r=soc |
| By: | Gee, Laura Katherine (Tufts University); Schreck, Michael J. (Analysis Group) |
| Abstract: | A popular fundraising tool is donation matching, where every dollar is matched by a third party. But field experiments find that matching does not always increase donations. This may occur because individuals believe that peer donors will exhaust the matching funds, so their donation is not pivotal to obtaining matching funds. We develop a theory of how beliefs about peers' donations affect one's own likelihood of donation. We test our theory using novel "threshold match" treatments in field and laboratory experiments. These treatments form small groups and offer a flat matching bonus if a threshold number of donations is received. One "threshold match" treatment more than doubles the donation rate in the field relative to no match. To better understand the mechanism behind this huge increase, we use a lab study to replicate the field results and further show that beliefs about peers' donations matter. Our theoretical, lab, and field results combined suggest people are more likely to donate when they believe they are more pivotal to securing matching money. Beliefs about others matter, and they should be taken into account when trying to increase donations. |
| Keywords: | charitable giving, field experiment, beliefs, public goods |
| JEL: | C93 D64 H41 |
| Date: | 2017–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10956&r=soc |