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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
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Issue of 2018‒01‒22
ten papers chosen by Fabio Sabatini Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Zhe Zhang; Louis Putterman; Xu Zhang |
| Abstract: | We study trust and willingness to cooperate among and between Uyghur and Han college students in Xinjiang, China, where tensions exist between the two ethnic groups. We conduct an incentivized laboratory-style decision-making experiment in which within and between group interactions occur among identifiable participants without traceability of individual decisions. We find that members of each ethnicity show favoritism towards those of their own ethnicity in both trust and cooperation and that communication enhances inter- ethnic cooperation significantly. We also find that Uyghur and Han subjects behave differently in their willingness to cooperate relative to trust, although both trust and trustworthiness positively correlate with willingness to cooperate on the individual level. |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bro:econwp:2018-4&r=soc |
| By: | Daron Acemoglu; Giuseppe De Feo; Giacomo De Luca |
| Abstract: | We document that the spread of the Mafia in Sicily at the end of the 19th century was in part shaped by the rise of socialist Peasant Fasci organizations. In an environment with weak state presence, this socialist threat triggered landholders, estate managers and local politicians to turn to the Mafia to resist and combat peasant demands. We show that the location of the Peasant Fasci is significantly affected by an exceptionally severe drought in 1893, and using information on rainfall, we establish the causal effect of the Peasant Fasci on the location of the Mafia in 1900. We provide extensive evidence that rainfall before and after this critical period has no effect on the spread of the Mafia or various economic and political outcomes. In the second part of the paper, we use the source of variation in the location of the Mafia in 1900 to estimate its medium-term and long-term effects. We find significant and quantitatively large negative impacts of the Mafia on literacy and various public goods in the 1910s and 20s. We also show a sizable impact of the Mafia on political competition, which could be one of the channels via which it affected local economic outcomes. We document negative effects of the Mafia on longer-term outcomes (in the 1960s, 70s and 80s) as well, but these are in general weaker and often only marginally significant. One exception is its persistent and strong impact on political competition. |
| JEL: | H11 H75 K42 P16 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24115&r=soc |
| By: | Stefano Comino; Alberto Galasso; Clara Graziano |
| Abstract: | What factors affect the diffusion of new economic institutions? This paper examines this question by exploiting the introduction of the first regularized patent system, which appeared in the Venetian Republic in 1474. We begin by developing a model that links patenting activity of craft guilds with provisions in their statutes. The model predicts that guild statutes that are more effective at preventing outsiders' entry and at mitigating price competition lead to less patenting. We test this prediction on a new dataset that combines detailed information on craft guilds and patents in the Venetian Republic during the Renaissance. We find a negative association between patenting activity and guild statutory norms that strongly restrict entry and price competition. We show that guilds that originated from medieval religious confraternities were more likely to regulate entry and competition, and that the effect on patenting is robust to instrumenting guild statutes with their quasi-exogenous religious origin. We also find that patenting was more widespread among guilds geographically distant from Venice, and among guilds in cities with lower political connections, which we measure by exploiting a new database of noble families and their marriages with members of the great council. Our analysis suggests that local economic and political conditions may have a substantial impact on the diffusion of new economic institutions. |
| JEL: | K23 N23 O33 O34 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24118&r=soc |
| By: | Nathan Nunn; Nancy Qian; Jaya Wen |
| Abstract: | We present findings that document one way in which a society's culture can affect political outcomes. Examining an annual panel of democratic countries over six decades, we show that severe economic downturns are more likely to cause political turnover in countries that have lower levels of generalized trust. The relationship is only found among democracies and for regular leader turnover, which suggests that the underlying mechanism works through leader accountability and the electoral process. Moreover, we find that the effects of trust on turnover are greatest during years with regularly-scheduled elections, and within democracies with a parliamentary system, a fully free media, and greater stability. The estimates suggest that generalized trust affects political institutions by influencing the extent to which citizens attribute economic downturns to the mistakes of politicians. |
| JEL: | D72 P16 P51 |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24187&r=soc |
| By: | Maria Adelaida Lopera; Steeve Marchand |
| Abstract: | We study how social interactions influence entrepreneurs' attitudes toward risk. We conduct two risk-taking experiments within workshops organized for young Ugandan entrepreneurs. Between the two experiments, the entrepreneurs participate in a networking activity where they build relationships and discuss with each other. We collect detailed data on peer network formation and on participants' choices before and after the networking activity. Our design implicitly controls for homophily effects (i.e. the tendency of individuals to develop relationships with people who have similar characteristics). We find that risk aversion is affected by social conformity. Participants tend to become more (less) risk averse in the second experiment if the peers they discuss with are on average more (less) risk averse in the first experiment. This suggests that social interactions play a role in shaping risk preferences. |
| Keywords: | Preference, Risk aversion, Entrepreneur, Social norms |
| JEL: | D03 D81 M13 Z13 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:piercr:2017-21&r=soc |
| By: | Engelmann, Dirk (Humboldt University Berlin); Friedrichsen, Jana (Humboldt University Berlin and DIW) |
| Abstract: | This paper experimentally investigates how concerns for social approval relate to intrinsic motivations to purchase ethically. Participants state their willingness-to-pay for both a fair trade and a conventional chocolate bar in private or publicly. A standard model of social image predicts that all participants increase their fair trade premium when facing an audience. We find that the premium is indeed higher in public than in private. This effect, however, is driven by participants who preferred a conventional chocolate bar over a fair trade one in a pre-lab choice. For those who chose the fair trade chocolate bar, public exposure does not change the fair trade premium. This is captured by a generalized model where intrinsic preferences and the concern for social approval are negatively correlated. |
| Keywords: | image concerns; ethical consumption; fair trade; social approval; experiments; |
| JEL: | C91 D12 |
| Date: | 2018–01–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:61&r=soc |
| By: | Hellmann, Tim (Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University); Panebianco, Fabrizio (Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University) |
| Abstract: | We study a model of transmission of continuous cultural traits across generations where children learn their cultural trait from their parents and their social environment modeled by a network. Parents can engage in the socialization process of their children by biasing links in the network in order for their children to adopt a cultural trait similar to their own. In this endogenous network, we study the emergence of positive and negative role models, the existence of a steady state cultural trait, its characterization in terms long-run influence of each dynasty, and the speed of convergence. |
| Keywords: | Cultural transmission, Social networks, Persistence of cultural traits, Network Formation |
| Date: | 2018–01–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bie:wpaper:579&r=soc |
| By: | James C. Cox; Vjollca Sadiraj; Urmimala Sen |
| Abstract: | An experiment is reported for payoff-equivalent public good and common pool games with high caste and low caste West Bengali villagers. Tests are reported for models of unconditional social preferences, models of reciprocity, and cultural identity. Results from the artefactual field experiment indicate that when information about caste is withheld no significant difference is observed in the efficiency of play between the villagers and student subjects at American universities in games with positive and negative externalities. In contrast, making the hereditary class structure salient induces different behavior among villagers. Providing caste information leads to: (i) the lowest level of efficiency when low caste first movers interact with a low caste second mover, and (ii) the highest level of efficiency when high caste first movers interact with a high caste second mover. Cross-caste play generates intermediate levels of efficiency. |
| JEL: | C93 C70 H41 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:exc:wpaper:2017-08&r=soc |
| By: | Howley, P.;; Knight, S.; |
| Abstract: | The role of relative rank, or interdependent preferences, in explaining individual well-being is a rapidly emerging research area for economists. A typically overlooked issue in this literature is the extent of individual heterogeneity in the degree to which individuals are susceptible to comparison effects. In keeping with the idea that comparison effects are important in the labour market, we find that the well-being of the unemployed is positively correlated with the unemployment of others (neighbourhood unemployment rates), whereas the opposite is true for the population as a whole. The main novelty of this study is that we document significant individual heterogeneity in these effects. Specifically, unemployed males and those with relatively strong social ties in their neighbourhood appear to be much more likely to derive well-being benefits from the unemployment of others. We further show that there are significant differences according to personality traits. We suggest that neglecting to consider individual heterogeneity and focusing on ‘average’ effects as is the norm in the literature to date will invariably lead to an incomplete, and perhaps superficial, understanding of the role of comparison effects for individual well-being. |
| Keywords: | comparison effects; unemployment; subjective well-being; |
| JEL: | I31 |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yor:hectdg:18/02&r=soc |
| By: | Lee, Neil; Morris, Katy; Kemeny, Thomas |
| Abstract: | Popular explanations of the Brexit vote have centred on the division between cosmopolitan internationalists who voted Remain, and geographically rooted individuals who voted Leave. In this paper, we conduct the first empirical test of whether residential immobility – the concept underpinning this distinction – was an important variable in the Brexit vote. We find that locally rooted individuals – defined as those living in their county of birth – were 7 percent more likely to vote Leave. However, the impact of immobility was filtered by local circumstances: immobility only mattered for respondents in areas experiencing relative economic decline or increases in migrant populations |
| Keywords: | Brexit; globalisation; mobility; populism |
| JEL: | D72 J61 R23 |
| Date: | 2018–01–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:86367&r=soc |