|
on Social Norms and Social Capital |
|
Issue of 2020‒09‒28
thirteen papers chosen by Fabio Sabatini Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Samuel Bazzi; Martin Fiszbein; Mesay Gebresilasse |
| Abstract: | Rugged individualism—the combination of individualism and anti-statism—is a prominent feature of American culture with deep roots in the country’s history of frontier settlement. Today, rugged individualism is more prevalent in counties with greater total frontier experience (TFE) during the era of westward expansion. While individualism may be conducive to innovation, it can also undermine collective action, with potentially adverse social consequences. We show that America’s frontier culture hampered the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Across U.S. counties, greater TFE is associated with less social distancing and mask use as well as weaker local government effort to control the virus. We argue that frontier culture lies at the root of several more proximate explanations for the weak collective response to public health risks, including a lack of civic duty, partisanship, and distrust in science. |
| JEL: | H12 H23 H75 I12 I18 P16 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27776&r=all |
| By: | Giuliano, Paola (University of California, Los Angeles) |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews the literature on gender and culture. Gender gaps in various outcomes (competitiveness, labor force participation, and performance in mathematics, amongst many others) show remarkable differences across countries and tend to persist over time. The economics literature initially explained these differences by looking at standard economic variables such as the level of development, women's education, the expansion of the service sector, and discrimination. More recent literature has argued that gender differences in a variety of outcomes could reflect underlying cultural values and beliefs. This article reviews the literature on the relevance of culture in the determination of different forms of gender gap. I examine how differences in historical situations could have been relevant in generating gender differences and the conditions under which gender norms tend to be stable or to change over time, emphasizing the role of social learning. Finally, I review the role of different forms of cultural transmission in shaping gender differences, distinguishing between channels of vertical transmission (the role of the family), horizontal transmission (the role of peers), and oblique transmission (the role of teachers or role models). |
| Keywords: | gender, culture, social norms |
| JEL: | A13 J16 Z1 |
| Date: | 2020–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13607&r=all |
| By: | Nick Obradovich (Center for Humans and Machines, Max Planck Institute for Human Development); Ömer Özak (Southern Methodist University); Ignacio Martín (Universidad Carlos III); Ignacio Ortuño-Ortín (Universidad Carlos III); Edmond Awad (University of Exeter Business School); Manuel Cebrián (Max Planck Institute for Human Development); Rubén Cuevas (Universidad Carlos III); Klaus Desmet (Southern Methodist University); Iyad Rahwan (Max Planck Institute for Human Development); Ángel Cuevas (Universidad Carlos III) |
| Abstract: | Culture has played a pivotal role in human evolution. Yet, the ability of social scientists to study culture is limited by the currently available measurement instruments. Scholars of culture must regularly choose between scalable but sparse survey-based methods or restricted but rich ethnographic methods. Here, we demonstrate that massive online social networks can advance the study of human culture by providing quantitative, scalable, and high-resolution measurement of behaviorally revealed cultural values and preferences. We employ publicly available data across nearly 60,000 topic dimensions drawn from two billion Facebook users across 225 countries and territories. We first validate that cultural distances calculated from this measurement instrument correspond to traditional survey-based and objective measures of cross-national cultural differences. We then demonstrate that this expanded measure enables rich insight into the cultural landscape globally at previously impossible resolution. We analyze the importance of national borders in shaping culture, explore unique cultural markers that identify subnational population groups, and compare subnational divisiveness to gender divisiveness across countries. The global collection of massive data on human behavior provides a high-dimensional complement to traditional cultural metrics. Further, the granularity of the measure presents enormous promise to advance scholars’ understanding of additional fundamental questions in the social sciences. The measure enables detailed investigation into the geopolitical stability of countries, social cleavages within both small and large-scale human groups, the integration of migrant populations, and the disaffection of certain population groups from the political process, among myriad other potential future applications. |
| Keywords: | Culture, Cultural Distance, Identity, Regional Culture, Gender Differences, Economic Development |
| JEL: | C80 F1 J1 O10 R10 Z10 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smu:ecowpa:2009&r=all |
| By: | Gill, Andrej (University of Mainz); Heinz, Matthias (University of Cologne); Schumacher, Heiner (KU Leuven); Sutter, Matthias (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods) |
| Abstract: | The financial industry has been struggling with widespread misconduct and public mistrust. Here we argue that the lack of trust into the financial industry may stem from the selection of subjects with little, if any, trustworthiness into the financial industry. We identify the social preferences of business and economics students, and follow up on their first job placements. We find that during college, students who want to start their career in the financial industry are substantially less trustworthy. Most importantly, actual job placements several years later confirm this association. The job market in the financial industry does not screen out less trustworthy subjects. If anything the opposite seems to be the case: Even among students who are highly motivated to work in finance after graduation, those who actually start their career in finance are significantly less trustworthy than those who work elsewhere. |
| Keywords: | trustworthiness, financial industry, selection, social preferences, experiment |
| JEL: | C91 G20 M51 |
| Date: | 2020–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13583&r=all |
| By: | Stefano Carattini (Georgia State University); Marcella Veronesi (Department of Economics (University of Verona)) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the relationship between generalized trust, temperature fluctuations during the maize growing season, and international migration by asylum seekers. A priori generalized trust can be expected to have an ambiguous effect on migration. On the one hand, countries with higher trust may exhibit higher adaptive capacity to temperature fluctuations and so lower climate-induced migration. On the other hand, trust may also facilitate migration by increasing the likelihood that communities invest in risk sharing through migration and enjoy reliable networks supporting migrants. Hence, it is an empirical question whether trust mitigates or increases the impact of climate change on migration. Our findings are consistent with an ambivalent effect of trust on migration. We find that for moderate temperature fluctuations, trust mitigates the impact of weather on migration. This effect is driven by the role of trust in increasing adaptive capacity. However, for severe temperature fluctuations, communities with higher trust experience more migration. Overall, the former effect dominates the latter, so that the net effect is that trust mitigates migration. Our findings point to important policy implications concerning the role of trust in fostering adaptation by facilitating collective action, and the need for targeted interventions to support adaptation and increase resilience in low-trust societies in which collective action may be harder to achieve. |
| Keywords: | Migration; climate change; trust; adaptation |
| JEL: | O15 Q54 Z13 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ver:wpaper:17/2020&r=all |
| By: | Drichoutis, Andreas C.; Grimm, Veronika; Karakostas, Alexandros |
| Abstract: | We study the role of culture on bribing attitudes in a new dynamic bribery game, where the purpose of bribing is to receive a service earlier by bribing to queue-jump. Our queue-jumping game allows us to distinguish between two classes of bribes: (i) queue-jumping bribes, which aim to increase the briber's expected earnings by jumping the queue, and (ii) counter bribes, which aim to maintain the briber's expected earnings by upholding the current order in the queue. In a laboratory experiment, comprised of four treatments that differ in the number of Greeks and Germans in each group, we analyze both cross-cultural and inter-cultural differences in bribing attitudes. In our cross-cultural treatments, we find that Greeks tend to bribe more often than Germans, but only in the early periods of the game. As time progresses, the Germans quickly catch-up, bribing as often as the Greeks. However, the observed differences in bribe rates in the early periods of the game are driven by queue-jumping bribes rather than counter-bribes. As the ratio of counter-bribes to queue-jumping bribes is significantly lower among Greeks relative to Germans, bribing to queue-jump is more profitable in the Greek groups. In our inter-cultural treatments, we find that minorities, irrespective of nationality, bribe less, despite there are no prospects for monetary or reputational gains. We interpret this result as evidence of outgroup favoritism by minority groups. |
| Keywords: | Antisocial Behavior; Corruption; Cross-Country Experiment; Inter-country Experiment; Social Norms |
| JEL: | C73 C91 C92 D62 D73 H49 Z10 |
| Date: | 2020–09–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:102775&r=all |
| By: | Remi Jedwab (George Washington University); Amjad M. Khan (The World Bank); Richard Damania (The World Bank); Jason Russ (The World Bank); Esha D. Zaveri (The World Bank) |
| Abstract: | Since COVID-19 broke out, there has been renewed interest in understanding the economic and social dynamics of historical and more recent pandemics and epidemics, from the plagues of Antiquity to modern-day outbreaks like Ebola. These events can have significant impacts on the interplay between poverty and social cohesion, i.e. how different groups in society interact and cooperate to survive and prosper. To that effect, this survey paper provides an overview of how social responses to past pandemics and epidemics were determined by the epidemiological and non-epidemiological characteristics of these outbreaks, with a particular focus on the scapegoating and persecution of minority groups, including migrants. More precisely, we discuss existing theories as well as historical and quantitative studies, and highlight the cases and contexts where pandemics may lead to milder or more severe forms of scapegoating. Finally, we conclude with a summary of priorities for future research on pandemics and social cohesion and discuss the possible effects and policy implications of COVID-19. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19, Pandemics, Epidemics, Disasters, Social Cohesion, Stigmatization, Minority Persecution, Conflict, Poverty, Migration, Social Capital, Trust |
| JEL: | O15 O18 I15 I19 J61 J71 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gwi:wpaper:2020-13&r=all |
| By: | Hasan, Iftekhar; Manfredonia, Stefano; Noth, Felix |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the critical role of culture for economic recovery after natural disasters. Using Hurricane Katrina as our laboratory, we find a significant adverse treatment effect for plant-level productivity. However, local religious adherence and larger shares of ancestors with disaster experiences mutually mitigate this detrimental effect from the disaster. Religious adherence further dampens anxiety after Hurricane Katrina, which potentially spur economic recovery. We also detect this effect on the aggregate county level. More religious counties recover faster in terms of population, new establishments, and GDP. |
| Keywords: | natural disasters,plant-level productivity,religion,recovery |
| JEL: | E23 E32 Z12 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:iwhdps:162020&r=all |
| By: | David L. Dickinson; David M. McEvoy |
| Abstract: | Recent policies require some interactions previously conducted in close social proximity (e.g., school, workplace) to take place remotely, which motivates our investigation of how in-person versus online environments impact honesty. We modify a well-known coin-flip task and examine the influence of going from the physical laboratory environment, to online with identifiable participants (same lab subject pool), to online with anonymous participants using mTurk. Surprisingly, while a simple move from in-lab to online (using the same subject pool) appears to increase “fake effort” – those who likely never flip the coin - it does not predict more dishonest behavior when there is a monetary incentive to cheat. The most socially distant and anonymous participants (mTurk) are more likely to be deemed cheaters in our analysis—these individuals report coin flip outcomes consistent with cheating for monetary gain. Implications of our findings indicate the greatest risk of potentially costly dishonest behavior results when anonymity, not just social distance, is high. Key Words: Social distance, cheating, coin flip, anonymity, behavioral economics, experiment |
| JEL: | C91 D90 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:apl:wpaper:20-13&r=all |
| By: | Drouvelis, Michalis (University of Birmingham); Gerson, Jennifer (University of London); Powdthavee, Nattavudh (University of Warwick); Riyanto, Yohanes E. (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) |
| Abstract: | Social media has made anonymized behavior online a prevalent part of many people's daily interactions. The implications of this new ability to hide one's identity information remain imperfectly understood. Might it be corrosive to human cooperation? This paper investigates the possibility that a small deceptive act of misrepresenting some information about one's real identity to others – a social media-related behavior commonly known as 'catfishing' – increases the likelihood that the individual will go on to behave uncooperatively in an otherwise anonymous prisoner's dilemma game. In our intention-to-treat analysis, we demonstrated that randomly allowing people to misrepresent their gender identity information reduced the aggregate cooperation level by approximately 12-13 percentage points. Not only that the average catfisher was substantially more likely to go on to defect than participants in the control and the true gender groups, those who were paired with a potential catfisher also defected significantly more often as well. Participants also suffered a significant financial loss from having been randomly matched with a catfisher; 64% of those who played against someone who chose to misrepresent information about their gender received a payoff of zero from the prisoner's dilemma game. Our results suggest that even small short-term opportunities to misrepresent one's identity to others can potentially be extremely harmful to later human cooperation and the economic well-being of the victims. |
| Keywords: | cooperation, misrepresentation, social media, social dilemma, experiment |
| JEL: | C92 D91 |
| Date: | 2020–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13619&r=all |
| By: | David G. Blanchflower (University of Stirling, GLO, Bloomberg and NBER); Alex Bryson (University College London, NIESR and IZA) |
| Abstract: | Using data from the United States and Europe on nearly two million respondents we show the partial correlation between union membership and employee job satisfaction is positive and statistically significant. This runs counter to findings in the seminal work of Freeman (1978) and Borjas (1979) in the 1970s and most empirical studies since. With data for the United States we show the association between union membership and job satisfaction switched from negative to positive in the 2000s. Cohorts with positive union effects over time come to dominate those with negative effects. The negative association between membership and job satisfaction is apparent in cohorts born in the 1940s and 1950s but turns positive for those born between the 1960s and 1990s. Analyses for Europe since the 2000s confirm the positive association between union membership and worker wellbeing is apparent elsewhere. We also find evidence in the United Kingdom from panel estimation of a positive relation between union membership and job satisfaction. We find positive union associations with other aspects of worker wellbeing including life satisfaction and happiness, several macro variables and various measures of trust. Union members are also less likely to be stressed, worried, depressed, sad or lonely. The findings have important implications for our understanding of trade unionism. |
| Keywords: | : union membership; job satisfaction; worker wellbeing; trust; age; cohort effects; union density |
| JEL: | J28 J50 J51 |
| Date: | 2020–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qss:dqsswp:2008&r=all |
| By: | Seong Hee Kim; Byung-Yeon Kim |
| Abstract: | This study uses the German socio-economic panel data to investigate the effects of mass migration of East Germans on the generalized trust of West Germans who experienced the aftermath of the unification. Results suggest that West Germans¡¯ trust is negatively correlated with migration, but the persistent effect is only confined to participants in the labor markets at the time. The subsequent analysis finds that perceiving migrants as labor market competitors is a possible channel through which trust is negatively affected. |
| Keywords: | Trust; Migration; Germany; Unification; |
| JEL: | C10 C1 C15 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:snu:ioerwp:no139&r=all |
| By: | Nieva, Ricardo |
| Abstract: | We study the role of an enforcer in the effectiveness of selective incentives in solving the collective action problem when groups take part in a contest. Cost functions exhibit constant elasticity of marginal effort costs. If prize valuations are homogeneous, our source of heterogeneity induces full cost-sharing and the first-best individual contributions; further, the group probability of winning goes up. With heterogeneity in prize valuations, an increase in the effectiveness of the enforcer in conflict increases the group probability of winning only if the prize valuation of the enforcer is lower than de Lehmer mean of those of the other players; however, the induced partial cost sharing is not group efficient. If effectiveness "tends to infi nity", the collective action problem is solved with partial cost-sharing if that prize valuation is not too low. Tragically, if productivity is low (if the prize is private in our set up) this occurs with corrupt coalitions which have been shown to form together with conflict and inequality endogenously; otherwise, this occurs with non corrupt coalitions. Further, even if such valuation is too low the group winning probability goes up. In this latter case, over cost-sharing yields group efficiency. |
| Keywords: | Institutional and Behavioral Economics |
| Date: | 2020–09–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:feemff:305207&r=all |