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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
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Issue of 2023‒02‒06
six papers chosen by Fabio Sabatini Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Áureo de Paula; Imran Rasul; Pedro CL Souza |
| Abstract: | Social interactions determine many economic behaviors, but information on social ties does not exist in most publicly available and widely used datasets. We present results on the identification of social networks from observational panel data that contains no information on social ties between agents. In the context of a canonical social interactions model, we provide sufficient conditions under which the social interactions matrix, endogenous and exogenous social effect parameters are all globally identified. While this result is relevant across different estimation strategies, we then describe how high-dimensional estimation techniques can be used to estimate the interactions model based on the Adaptive Elastic Net Generalized Method of Moments. We employ the method to study tax competition across US states. We find that the identified social interactions matrix implies tax competition differs markedly from the common assumption of competition between geographically neighbouring states, providing further insights for the long-standing debate on the relative roles of factor mobility and yardstick competition in driving tax setting behavior across states. Most broadly, our identification and application show that the analysis of social interactions can be extended to economic realms where no network data exists. |
| Date: | 2023–01–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:azt:cemmap:02/23&r=soc |
| By: | Carin van der Cruijsen; Jakob de Haan; Maarten van Rooij |
| Abstract: | Little is known about the impact of high inflation on public trust. Using a survey in the Netherlands, we find that the recent increase in inflation is associated with a decline in trust in the Dutch central bank and Dutch politics. The higher individuals’ perceived inflation is and the harder it is for them to make ends meet, the lower their trust in the European Central Bank, the Dutch central bank, and Dutch politics. We also find that people trust authorities considered responsible for bringing inflation down less. Quite remarkably, most people think government is responsible for maintaining price stability. |
| Keywords: | inflation; trust; financial stress; central banks; national politics |
| JEL: | D12 D83 E31 E58 |
| Date: | 2023–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dnb:dnbwpp:762&r=soc |
| By: | Albarosa, Emanuele (University College Dublin); Elsner, Benjamin (University College Dublin) |
| Abstract: | A commonly expressed concern about immigration is that it undermines social cohesion in the receiving country. In this paper, we study the impact of a large and sudden inflow of asylum seekers on several indicators of social cohesion. In 2015/16, over one million asylum seekers from Syria, Afghanistan, and elsewhere arrived in Germany. Anecdotal evidence suggests that this inflow changed the public opinion on hosting asylum seekers, from being highly welcoming to fairly negative within a few months. Using individual- and county-level panel data, we test whether the evidence supports this apparent shift in attitudes. In a difference-in-differences design, we compare the attitudes of individuals in areas with large vs. small local inflows before and after the inflow. In individual survey data, we find mixed evidence of an impact on social cohesion. In a representative sample, we find no evidence that the inflow undermined social cohesion, except for a negative effect on donations to charity. In areas with high vote shares for the populist party AfD, we find that the inflow led to greater anti-immigrant sentiment and a greater concern about crime. We also show that areas with larger increases in the number of asylum seekers experienced a significant increase in anti-immigrant violence, which lasted for about two years before returning to its pre-inflow level. This effect was larger in areas with higher unemployment and greater support for AfD. |
| Keywords: | forced migration, social attitudes, anti-immigrant violence |
| JEL: | J15 J61 |
| Date: | 2023–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15850&r=soc |
| By: | Silvia Angerer (UMIT - Private University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Hall in Tirol); Daniela Glätzle-Rützler (University of Innsbruck); Philipp Lergetporer (Technical University of Munich and CESifo); Thomas Rittmannsberger (University of Innsbruck) |
| Abstract: | Social norms affect a wide range of behaviors in society. We conducted a representative experiment to study how beliefs about the existing social norm regarding COVID-19 vaccination affect vaccination readiness. Beliefs about the norm are on average downward biased, and widely dispersed. Randomly providing information about the existing descriptive norm succeeds in correcting biased beliefs, thereby reducing belief dispersion. The information has no effect on vaccination readiness on average, which is due to opposite effects among women (positive) and men (negative). Fundamental differences in how women and men process the same information are likely the cause for these contrasting information effects. Control-group vaccination intentions are lower among women than men, so the information reduces polarization by gender. Additionally, the information reduces gendered polarization in policy preferences related to COVID-19 vaccination. |
| Keywords: | social norms, vaccination, COVID-19 |
| JEL: | C93 D90 I12 |
| Date: | 2023–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aiw:wpaper:26&r=soc |
| By: | Maja Adena (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), 10785 Berlin, Germany); Daniel Hamermesh (University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78712, USA); Michał Myck (Centre for Economic Analysis, 71441 Szczecin, Poland); Monika Oczkowska (Centre for Economic Analysis, 71441 Szczecin, Poland) |
| Abstract: | Using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE, 2004-17) and time diaries from Poland (2013), the U.S. (2006-16), the U.K. (2014-15) and France (2009-10), we examine differences between widowed and partnered older women in well-being and its development in widowhood. Most importantly, our analysis accounts for time use, an aspect which has not been studied previously. We trace the evolution of well-being of women who become widowed by comparing them with their matched non-widowed ‘statistical twins’ and examine the role of an exceptionally broad set of potential moderators of widowhood’s impact on well-being. We confirm a dramatic decrease in mental health and life satisfaction after the loss of partner, followed by a slow partial recovery over a five-year period. An extensive set of controls recorded prior to widowhood, including detailed family ties and social networks, provides little help in explaining the deterioration in well-being. Unique data from time-diaries kept by older women in several European countries and the U.S. tell us why: the key factor behind widows’ reduced well-being is increased time spent alone. |
| Keywords: | widowhood; well-being; social networks; time use; |
| JEL: | I31 I19 J14 |
| Date: | 2023–01–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:377&r=soc |
| By: | Sultan Mehmood (University of Paris); Shaheen Naseer (University of Oxford [Oxford]); Daniel L. Chen (TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT1 - Université Toulouse 1 Capitole - Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | Randomizing different schools of thought –via a month-long training– finds that training deputy ministers in effective altruism renders 0.4-0.6 standard deviations increase in altruism. Treated ministers increased mentalizing of others: blood donations doubled, but only when blood banks requested their exact blood type. Perspective-taking in strategic dilemmas improved. Orphanage visits and volunteering in impoverished schools also increased. We then trace the impact of the training on their policymaking: one year after training, amid official duties, ministers were 50-100% more likely to choose social policies and recommend over 4-fold additional funding for them. Overall, our results underscore that effective altruism may be a parsimonious foundation for formation of prosociality, even impacting the behavior of adults in the field and their high-stakes policymaking |
| Keywords: | Economics, Soft-skills, Prosociality, Altruism, Policymakers |
| Date: | 2022–12–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03899752&r=soc |