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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
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Issue of 2019‒11‒11
nine papers chosen by Fabio Sabatini Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Alberto Bisin; Giulia Tura |
| Abstract: | We study the cultural integration of immigrants, estimating a structural model of marital matching along ethnic dimensions, exploring in detail the role of fertility, and possibly divorce in the integration process. We exploit rich administrative demographic data on the universe of marriages formed in Italy, as well as birth and separation records from 1995 to 2012. We estimate strong preferences of ethnic minorities' towards socialization of children to their own identity, identifying marital selection and fertility choices as fundamental socialization mechanisms. The estimated cultural intolerance of Italians towards immigrant minorities is also substantial. Turning to long-run simulations, we nd that cultural intolerances, as well as fertility and homogamy rates, slow-down the cultural integration of some immigrant ethnic minorities, especially Latin America, East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Nonetheless, 75% of immigrants integrate into the majoritarian culture over the period of a generation. Interestingly, we show by counterfactual analysis that a lower cultural intolerance of Italians towards minorities would lead to slower cultural integration by allowing immigrants a more widespread use of their own language rather than Italian in heterogamous marriages. Finally, we quantitatively assess the effects of large future immigration inflows. |
| Keywords: | intermarriage, marital matching, cultural transmission, integration |
| JEL: | D10 J12 J13 J15 |
| Date: | 2019–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2019-063&r=all |
| By: | Chiswick, Barry R.; Wang, Zhiling |
| Abstract: | Using longitudinal data on immigrants in the Netherlands fromthe survey 'Social Position and Use of Public Facilities by Immigrants' (SPVA) for the years 1991, 1994, 1998, 2002, we examined the impacts of social contacts and Dutch language proficiency on adult foreign-born men's earnings, employment and occupational status. On average, social contacts and a good mastery of the Dutch language enhance immigrants'economic performances. The effects are much stronger for immigrants with low-skill-transferability than for immigrants with high-skill-transferability, are stronger for economic migrants than for non-economic migrants, and are stronger for white-collar workers than for blue-collar workers. Contact with Dutch people and Dutch organisations unambiguously enhances all aspects of immigrants' economic performance, however, no evidence is found for a positive effect of co-ethnic contact on employment status. To deal with the endogeneity between Dutch language ability and earnings, an interaction term between age at migration and a dichotomous variable for a non-Dutch-speaking origin is used as the identifying instrument. The selectivity issue of survey respondents was tackled as well to validate the main findings. The study has a strong policy implication for integration policies in the Netherlands, or more broadly in the immigrant receiving countries. |
| Keywords: | immigrants,social capital,Dutch language proficiency,labour market performance,skill transferability,the Netherlands |
| JEL: | J15 J61 Z13 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:419&r=all |
| By: | Benjamin Enke; Ricardo Rodríguez-Padilla; Florian Zimmermann |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces a new set of simple experimentally-validated survey games to measure moral universalism: the extent to which people exhibit the same level of altruism and trust towards strangers as towards in-group members. In a representative sample of the U.S. population, an individual’s degree of universalism is largely a domain-general trait. Older people, men, whites, the rich, the rural, and the religious exhibit less universalist preferences and beliefs. Looking at economic behaviors and outcomes, universalists donate less money locally but more globally, are less likely to exhibit home bias in equity and educational investments, have fewer friends, and report being more lonely. |
| Keywords: | moral universalism, in-group bias |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7921&r=all |
| By: | Quintero Rojas, Coralia Azucena; Viianto, Lari Artur |
| Abstract: | The incorporation of women into the labor market remains a challenge for most countries; likewise, gender gaps are observed in indicators such as employment, unemployment and participation. In this paper we study the role of social norms in the labor market performance per gender; that is, how gender gaps arise from conservative gender roles. To this end, we construct an agent-based model where discrimination appears when information on job vacancies is transmitted within a social network with preference to a given gender. Networks are defined by size, closeness and links per family. Our results show that: Social networks enhance the chance of getting a job. Discrimination deepens gender gaps. Discrimination does not favor the employment situation of households, since the share of non-income households (both members unemployed) is not reduced. Rather, discrimination reduces the number of two-income households in favor of the single-income households where only the man is employed. |
| Keywords: | social networks, social norms, gender inequality, discrimination, labor markets, economic systems. |
| JEL: | C63 D85 J71 |
| Date: | 2019–10–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:96752&r=all |
| By: | Mauro Caselli; Paolo Falco |
| Abstract: | Italian voters are assigned to a specific polling station according to their address. After an election, candidates know how many votes they received in each polling station. When the number of voters per polling stations is low and candidates are many, this jeopardises the secrecy of voting and candidates can more easily detect deviations from pre-electoral pledges. Exploiting variation in the number of voters per polling station across cities and over time, combined with rich data on politicians in office in all Italian municipalities between 1989 and 2015, we estimate the effect of voter density on the probability of re-election for local politicians. We find that when the number of voters per polling station is lower (and secrecy is at greater risk), incumbents have a higher probability of re-election. The analysis addresses the potential endogeneity of voter density. The results are stronger in regions with lower social capital and worse institutions. |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:econwp:_26&r=all |
| By: | Kawamata, Takahiro |
| Abstract: | Since the East Asian Miracle report was published by the World Bank in 1993, East Asian countries have achieved economic development with the "flying geese pattern" respectively, as well as advancements in informatization based on each political and cultural context. In particular, the revolution in information and communications technology (I&CT) drives commercial and social usage of the Internet throughout multiple devices such as personal computers, tablets, and smart-phones. East Asian cultural contexts thereby create commonalities over their territories, and maintain their distinctive characters as well. While telecommunications and media industries are under governmental control, with government regulations in most Asian countries, platform businesses, such as social network services (SNSs) have expanded across borders, demonstrating the principle of network externality and economy. In addition, cultural and/or social contents easily expand with identity and universality as high culture and with popularity as pop- and/or sub-cultures among younger generations within areas. This paper examines the potential of East and South East Asian markets including not only China, Korea, and Japan, but also Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, for mobile and wired communications, their technologies, services, content, and applications. It also describes the dynamism of networking among interested players over the next generation of information and communication technologies and their applications, such as SNSs and "FinTech", including mobile payment and e-commerce, as well as content including audio and visual content, and game software; in the context of the "Ecosystem" of I&CT business and the path-dependency of social shaping of technological trajectories as enhanced in each political and cultural territory. There may be a dramatic change occurring in the structure of the industry affecting not only telecommunications network components, terminal equipment vendors and software developers, but also network operators and service providers located in Asian territories. Therefore, our analysis places emphasis on the dynamic formulation of multi-tiered and multifaceted frameworks of "Geo-Cultural Informatics," which encapsulates the geo-politics and geo-economics associated with cultural informatics, within industrial clusters over Asian marketplaces... |
| Keywords: | Evolution of Technology,Ecosystem of industries,Geo-political economics,"Geo-cultural informatics",Path dependence of technology and institution,Social Networking Service (SNS),FinTech,Trust-based areas |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:itse19:205188&r=all |
| By: | Francis Bloch (Université Paris 1 and Paris School of Economics); Bhaskar Dutta (University of Warwick and Ashoka University); Stéphane Robin (Université de Lyon); Min Zhu (Beijing Normal University) |
| Abstract: | This paper reports on laboratory experiments on the formation of partnerships in social networks. Agents randomly request favors and turn to their neighbors to form a partnership where they commit to provide the favor when requested. The formation of a partnership is modeled as a sequential game, which admits a unique subgame perfect equilibrium resulting in the formation of the maximum number of partnerships. Experimental results show that a large fraction of the subjects (75%) play according to their subgame perfect equilibrium strategy and reveals that the efficient maximum matching is formed over 78% of the times. When subjects deviate from their best responses, they accept to form partnerships too early. The incentive to accept when it is optimal to reject is positively correlated with subjects’ risk aversion, and players employ simple heuristics – like the presence of a captive partner – to decide whether they should accept or reject the formation of a partnership. |
| Keywords: | social networks, partnerships, matchings in networks, non-stationary networks, laboratory experiments |
| Date: | 2018–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ash:wpaper:05&r=all |
| By: | Fungáčová, Zuzana; Kerola, Eeva; Weill, Laurent |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how past experience with banking crises influences an individual’s trust in banks. We combine data on banking crises for the period 1970–2014 with individual data on trust in banks for 52 countries. We find that experiencing a banking crisis diminishes a person’s trust in banks, and that high exposure to banking crises is negatively related to trust in banks. An individual’s age at the time of the crisis is important, and significant for individuals between 41 and 60 years of age at the time of the banking crisis. Both severe and mild crises diminish trust in banks, but a severe banking crisis hits also young people’s trust, while less severe banking crises mainly degrade trust of more mature people. The detrimental effect for trust in banks seems to be connected specifically to systemic banking crises. Other types of financial crises incur a less significant effect. Overall, our results indicate that banking crises generate previously unrecognized costs for the economy in the form of a lasting reduction of trust in banks. |
| JEL: | G21 O16 |
| Date: | 2019–10–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bof:bofitp:2019_021&r=all |
| By: | Benjamin Enke; Ricardo Rodríguez-Padilla; Florian Zimmermann |
| Abstract: | Throughout the Western world, people’s policy preferences are correlated across domains in a strikingly similar fashion. Based on a simple model, we propose that what partly explains the particular internal structure of political ideology is heterogeneity in moral universalism: the extent to which an individual’s altruism and trust remain constant as social distance increases. In representative surveys with 15,000 respondents, we measure universalism using structured choice tasks. In the data, heterogeneity in universalism descriptively explains a substantial share of desired government spending levels for welfare, affirmative action, environmental protection, foreign aid, health care, military, border control, and law enforcement. Moreover, the canonical left-right divide on issues such as the military or redistribution reverses depending on whether participants evaluate more or less universalist versions of these policies. These patterns hold in the United States, Australia, Germany, France, and Sweden, but not outside the West. We confirm the idea of higher universalism among the Western political left by estimating the universalism of U.S. regions using large-scale donation data and linking this measure to local vote shares. |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7924&r=all |