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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
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Issue of 2018‒05‒21
fifteen papers chosen by Fabio Sabatini Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Carlsson, Fredrik (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Demeke, Eyoual (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Martinsson, Peter (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Tesemma, Tewodros (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | In empirical studies, survey questions are typically used to measure trust; trust games are also used to measure interpersonal trust. In this paper, we measure trust in different institutions by using both trust games and survey questions. We find that generalized trust is only weakly correlated with trust in specific institutions, when elicited both by using a trust game and by using survey questions. However, the correlation between trust in a specific institution elicited through a trust game and stated trust for the same institution is stronger and statistically significant. Thus, our findings suggest that generalized trust is not an appropriate measure of institutional trust and that more specific institutional trust measures should be used. |
| Keywords: | experiment; institutional trust; generalized trust |
| JEL: | C90 D01 D02 O43 |
| Date: | 2018–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0730&r=soc |
| By: | Fabian Kosse (University of Bonn); Thomas Deckers (University of Bonn); Pia Pinger (Universität Bonn); Hannah Schildberg-Horisch (University of Bonn); Armin Falk (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 gap in prosociality between low and high SES children. A mediation analysis of the observed treatment effect suggests that prosociality develops in response to stimuli in the form of prosocial role models and intense social interactions. |
| Keywords: | Formation of preferences, prosociality, social preferences, trust, social inequality |
| JEL: | D64 C90 |
| Date: | 2018–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2018-025&r=soc |
| By: | Simone Piras; Francesca Pancotto; Simone Righi; Matteo Vittuari; Marco Setti |
| Abstract: | Household food waste is a crucial problem in developed countries. Food waste behaviour is the result of complex interactions among economic factors, deeply rooted habits, and social norms. It can thus be considered a measure of the social capital characterizing a community. We test this hypothesis using a national-level dataset on household food-related behaviours and opinions in Italy gathered in 2016. This country is an ideal test bed for a comparative analysis on social capital. We find household food waste measures to be negatively related with the local level of social capital. This relationship is mediated by family income, as it becomes weaker for better-o families. Furthermore, we find that behaviours and opinions eliciting status concerns with respect to food, as well as lack of organisational abilities, generate increased food waste. In turn, these behaviours and opinions are more prevalent in areas with low social capital. Our results, captured by a simple model where food waste decisions are considered in the context of a modified public good game, allow to derive several policy implications for the reduction of food waste. |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mod:cappmo:0163&r=soc |
| By: | Fabian Kosse; Thomas Deckers; Pia Pinger; Hannah Schildberg-Hörisch; Armin Falk |
| 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 socioeconomic 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 randomlyassigned 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 gap in prosociality between low and high SES children. A mediation analysis of the observed treatment effect suggests that prosociality develops in response to stimuli in the form of prosocial role models and intense social interactions. |
| Keywords: | Formation of preferences, prosociality, social preferences, trust, social inequality |
| JEL: | D64 C90 |
| Date: | 2018–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_013_2018&r=soc |
| By: | Ernst Fehr; Tony Williams |
| Abstract: | Throughout human history, informal sanctions by peers were ubiquitous and played a key role in the enforcement of social norms and the provision of public goods. However, a considerable body of experimental evidence suggests that informal peer sanctions cause large collateral damage and efficiency costs. This raises the question whether peer sanctioning systems exist that avoid these costs and whether other, more centralized, punishment systems are superior and will be preferred by the people. Here, we show that welfare-enhancing peer sanctioning without much need for costly punishment emerges quickly if we introduce two relevant features of social life into the experiment: (i) subjects can migrate across groups with different sanctioning institutions and (ii) they have the chance to achieve consensus about normatively appropriate behavior. The exogenous removal of the norm consensus opportunity reduces the efficiency of peer punishment and renders centralized sanctioning by an elected judge the dominant institution. However, if given the choice, subjects universally reject peer sanctioning without a norm consensus opportunity – an institution that has hitherto dominated research in this field – in favor of peer sanctioning with a norm consensus opportunity or an equally efficient institution with centralized punishment by an elected judge. Migration opportunities and normative consensus building are key to the quick emergence of an efficient culture of universal cooperation because the more prosocial subjects populate the two efficient institutions first, elect prosocial judges (if institutionally possible), and immediately establish a social norm of high cooperation. This norm appears to guide subjects’ cooperation and punishment choices, including the virtually complete removal of antisocial punishment when judges make the sanctioning decision. |
| Keywords: | cooperation, punishment ,endogenous institutions, public goods |
| JEL: | D02 D03 D72 H41 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7003&r=soc |
| By: | Christoph Aymanns; Jakob Foerster; Co-Pierre Georg |
| Abstract: | We model the spread of news as a social learning game on a network. Agents can either endorse or oppose a claim made in a piece of news, which itself may be either true or false. Agents base their decision on a private signal and their neighbors’ past actions. Given these inputs, agents follow strategies derived via multi-agent deep reinforcement learning and receive utility from acting in accordance with the veracity of claims. Our framework yields strategies with agent utility close to a theoretical, Bayes optimal benchmark, while remaining flexible to model re-specification. Optimized strategies allow agents to correctly identifymostfalseclaims, whenallagentsreceiveunbiasedprivatesignals. However, anadversary’s attempt to spread fake news by targeting a subset of agents with a biased private signal can be successful. Even more so when the adversary has information about agents’ network position or private signal. When agents are aware of the presence of an adversary they re-optimize their strategies in the training stage and the adversary’s attack is less effective. Hence, exposing agents to the possibility of fake news can be an effective way to curtail the spread of fake news in social networks. Our results also highlight that information about the users’ private beliefs and their social network structure can be extremely valuable to adversaries and should be well protected. |
| Keywords: | social learning, networks, multi-agent deep reinforcement learning |
| Date: | 2017–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usg:sfwpfi:2018:04&r=soc |
| By: | Bakshi, Rejaul; Mallick, Debdulal; Ulubaşoğlu, Mehmet |
| Abstract: | The extreme hunger and deprivation that recurs every year in the lean season in northern Bangladesh, locally known as the Monga, is mainly due to the malfunctioning local labor and credit markets. Using data covering 5,600 extreme poor households in the Monga-prone region, we investigate in detail the role of social capital in securing employment and obtaining informal loans. Correcting for the endogeneity of social capital by the heteroscedasticity-based method proposed by Klein and Vella (2010) and also by the standard IV method for a robustness check, we document that social capital plays an important role in obtaining both wage- and self-employment. We also document a weak negative effect of social capital on obtaining informal loans. We explain our results in terms of the role of horizontal and vertical components of our measures of social capital in influencing different outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Monga, extreme seasonality, social capital, heteroscedasticity, employment, informal loan |
| JEL: | G21 I32 P46 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:86587&r=soc |
| By: | Gilles Le Garrec (Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques) |
| Abstract: | When studying attitudes towards redistribution, surveys show that individuals do care about fairness. They also show that the cultural environment in which people grow up affects their preferences about redistribution. In this article we include these two components of the demand for redistribution in order to develop a mechanism for the cultural transmission of the concern for fairness. The preferences of the young are partially shaped through the observation and imitation of others' choices. More specifically, observing during childhood how adults have collectively failed to implement fair redistributive policies lowers the concern during adulthood for fairness or the moral cost of not supporting fair taxation. Based on this mechanism, the model exhibits a multiplicity of history-dependent stationary states that may account for the huge and persistent differences in redistribution observed between Europe and the United States. It also explains why immigrants from countries with a preference for greater redistribution continue to support higher redistribution in their destination country. |
| Keywords: | Redistribution; Fairness; Majority rule; Social norms; Endogenous preferences |
| JEL: | H53 D63 D72 |
| Date: | 2017–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/5i5aonalu59pfof3e60qjqalno&r=soc |
| By: | Quoc-Anh Do (Département d'économie); Kieu-Trang Nguyen (London School of Economics and Political Science); Anh N. Tran (Indiana University) |
| Abstract: | We study patronage politics in authoritarian Vietnam, using an exhaustive panel of 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 toward 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: | patronage politics; Vietnam; hometown |
| JEL: | D72 H76 O15 O17 O18 P25 Z13 |
| Date: | 2017–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/sj22pruud8a7b8cdlvom4sbtp&r=soc |
| By: | Toke R. Fosgaard (Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen); Adriaan R. Soetevent (Tinbergen Institute, University of Groningen) |
| Abstract: | The declining use of cash in society urges charities to experiment with digital payment instruments in their o -line fund raising activities. Cash and card payments di er in that the latter do not require individuals to donate at the time of the ask, disconnecting the decision to give from the act of giving. Evidence shows that people who say they will give mostly do not follow through. Our theory shows that having people to formally state the intended amount may alleviate this problem. We report on a field experiment the results of which show that donors who have pledged an amount are indeed more likely to follow through. The firmer the pledge, the more closely the amount donated matches the amount that was pledged. 45% of all participants however refuses to pledge. This proves that donors value exibility over commitment in intertemporal charitable giving. |
| Keywords: | Charitable fundraising, Field experiment, Image motivation |
| JEL: | C93 D64 D91 H41 |
| Date: | 2018–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:foi:wpaper:2018_03&r=soc |
| By: | Holden , Stein T. (Centre for Land Tenure Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences); Tilahun , Mesfin (Centre for Land Tenure Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences) |
| Abstract: | The paper assesses risk tolerance, trust and trustworthiness among male and female youth group members in recently formed primary cooperative businesses in Ethiopia. Male members are found to be more risk tolerant, trusting and trustworthy than females. There is a strong positive correlation between individual risk tolerance and trust for male while this correlation is much weaker for female members. Individual risk tolerance is positively correlated with trustworthiness for males but not for females. Females are more trusting and trustworthy in groups with more risk tolerant members. Females’ trustworthiness is more sensitive to group characteristics and experiences. The findings are consistent with social role theory as males appear more instrumental and females more communal in their responses. |
| Keywords: | Gender differences; risk tolerance; trust; trustworthiness; youth business group members; social role theory; Ethiopia |
| JEL: | C93 D80 D81 D84 D90 |
| Date: | 2018–03–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nlsclt:2018_003&r=soc |
| By: | Holden, Stein T. (Centre for Land Tenure Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences); Tilahun , Mesfin (Centre for Land Tenure Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences) |
| Abstract: | We analyzed lab-in-the-field trust and risk experiment with 1125 youth in 119 youth groups established as primary cooperatives to develop a joint business. The experiments were implemented using classrooms in local schools as field labs. The standard trust game was used with all youth participants playing the roles as trustors as well as trustees. As trustors, they knew that the trustee would be an anonymous member of their own youth group. We hypothesize that this allows trustors to transform uncertainty about trustworthiness into risk such that risk tolerance will influence trusting behavior. The strategy method was used to elicit more detailed information about stated trustworthiness given different amounts received. A proxy measure for risk tolerance was obtained with a separate simple incentivized risk game. Expected trustworthiness in groups was modeled by the first two moments of the average stated and actual within-group trustworthiness. The group level analysis reveals that higher average risk tolerance increases trust and so does expected trustworthiness measured as average stated trustworthiness. Higher expected risk in the trust game, modeled as within-group variability in actual trustworthiness, is associated with lower average trust. More risk tolerant groups are also significantly more trustworthy. |
| Keywords: | Trust; trustworthiness; risk tolerance; youth groups; primary cooperative; Ethiopia |
| JEL: | C93 D80 D81 D84 D90 |
| Date: | 2017–10–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nlsclt:2017_013&r=soc |
| By: | Nadja König; Ludger Schuknecht |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the role of governments and its link to trust. We argue that the public’s trust strongly depends on governments delivering on their core tasks in a market economy. In some economies, a neglect of core tasks can be observed and there seems to be some erosion, notably in terms of securing sound rules of the game in industrialised countries. We find very little correlation between government expenditure and trust but a strong correlation with delivering on core tasks. This leads us to conclude that it is not government spending per se that needs to increase to build trust, but rather better focused government activities. |
| Keywords: | role of government, public goods, trust in government, quality of public finances |
| JEL: | H11 H41 H50 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6997&r=soc |
| By: | Lin, Yu-Hsuan |
| Abstract: | This study examines the relationship between individual altruistic attitudes and the incentives of participating in a climate coalition by using a laboratory experiment. A dominant strategy solution design assigns players into two roles in the game: critical and non-critical players. The critical players have a weakly dominant strategy of joining and are essential to an effective coalition. On the other hand, the non-critical players have a dominant strategy of not-joining. The theory suggests that strong altruism would lead non-critical players to join a coalition. The experimental evidence supports that coalitions are therefore enlarged from the self-interest prediction. However, the result indicates that the individual incentives for participation seem to be negatively correlated with altruistic attitudes. It implies the stronger the altruistic tendencies the less likely individuals are to join a coalition. In other words, coalition formation may be expanded by egoistic players. |
| Keywords: | International environmental agreement, social preference, altruism, experimental design |
| JEL: | C91 D64 H41 Q54 |
| Date: | 2018–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:86484&r=soc |
| By: | OECD |
| Abstract: | Students who engage in more moderate physical activity are better at collaborating with others to solve problems and have more positive attitudes towards their team members.Students who access the Internet, chat or social networks outside of school collaborate better than students who do not engage in these activities, while students who play video games outside of school collaborate worse than students who do not play video games.Students who work in the household or take care of other family members value teamwork more and have better attitudes towards their team members than other students, as do students who regularly meet friends or talk to friends on the phone. |
| Date: | 2018–05–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduddd:84-en&r=soc |