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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
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Issue of 2024‒05‒13
ten papers chosen by Fabio Sabatini, Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Peter Andre (Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE); Teodora Boneva (Department of Economics, University of Bonn); Felix Chopra (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen); Armin Falk (Department of Economics, University of Bonn) |
| Abstract: | We document the individual willingness to act against climate change and study the role of social norms in a large sample of US adults. Individual beliefs about social norms positively predict pro-climate donations, comparable in strength to universal moral values and economic preferences such as patience and reciprocity. However, we document systematic misperceptions of social norms. Respondents vastly underestimate the prevalence of climate-friendly behaviors and norms. Correcting these misperceptions inan experiment causally raises individual willingness to act against climate change as well as individual support for climate policies. The effects are strongest for individuals who are skeptical about the existence and threat of global warming. |
| Keywords: | Climate change, climate behavior, climate policies, social norms, misperception, beliefs, economic preferences, moral values, survey experiments |
| JEL: | D64 D83 D91 Q51 Q54 Z13 |
| Date: | 2024–04–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kucebi:2408&r=soc |
| By: | Bertoli, Simone; Clerc, Melchior; Loper, Jordan; Fernández, Èric Roca |
| Abstract: | Giuliano and Nunn (2021), GN henceforth, provide econometric evidence that ancestral climatic variability is negatively associated with the current importance of tradition using a variety of data sources. This replication focuses on the results that use individual-level data and identifies major discrepancies between several econometric specifications described in the article and their corresponding code. We are able to correct most of these mistakes by realigning the code with the text. Once corrections are implemented, we obtain almost invariably a smaller and non-significant coefficient for climatic variability. |
| Keywords: | cultural persistence, tradition, languages |
| JEL: | F22 Z13 N10 Q54 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:i4rdps:116&r=soc |
| By: | Giuliano, Paola; Nunn, Nathan |
| Abstract: | This note addresses the questions, concerns, and issues raised in "Understanding cultural persistence and change: a replication of Giuliano and Nunn (2021)." In terms of replicability, all of the tables in Giuliano and Nunn (2021) are correct, and the replication files match the output reported in the tables. In their note, the authors suggest alternative, more-restricted samples (e.g., omitting observations: under five years of age, under 16 years of age, living in rural locations, first or second-generation immigrants, with unmarried spouses, from specific ancestral groups, from the 1930 Census, etc.) and also less-restrictive samples (e.g., including grandchildren in analyses of parent-to-child cultural transmission for households that comprise three generations). We re-explain the logic of our baseline samples and why these samples are the most natural, as well as discuss the issues, complications, and incorrect reasoning associated with the authors' suggested alternatives. We also show, reproducing all relevant tables in full for each alternative raised, that our conclusions do not depend on these decisions. |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:i4rdps:117&r=soc |
| By: | Perroni, Carlo (University of Warwick); Scharf, Kimberley (University of Nottingham); Smith, Sarah (University of Bristol); Talavera, Oleksandr (University of Birmingham); Vi, Linh (Aston University) |
| Abstract: | Combining longitudinal postcode-level data on charitable donations made through a UK giving portal with publicly available data on local crime and neighborhood characteristics, we study the relationship between local crime and local residents’ charitable giving and we investigate the possible mechanisms underlying this relationship. An increase in local crime corresponds to a sizeable increase in the overall size of unscheduled charitable donations. This effect is mainly driven by the responses of female and gender unclassified donors. Donation responses also reflect postcode variation in socio-economic characteristics, levels of mental health, and political leanings, but mainly so for female and gender-unidentified donors. |
| Keywords: | Charitable Donations, Prosocial Behavior, Crime JEL Classification: H41, D64, D91, J15 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:706&r=soc |
| By: | François Facchini (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Sophie Massin (LEM - Lille économie management - UMR 9221 - UA - Université d'Artois - UCL - Université catholique de Lille - Université de Lille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, IÉSEG School Of Management [Puteaux]); Kevin Brookes (PACTE - Pacte, Laboratoire de sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes - IEPG - Sciences Po Grenoble - Institut d'études politiques de Grenoble - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes) |
| Abstract: | This paper draws on macroeconomics, the economics of institutions and the economics of trust to explain private savings at the national level for 33 OECD (mostly European) countries from 2002 to 2012. More specifically, it raises two questions: (i) is it the quality of institutions or trust in institutions that drives private savings? (ii) if trust matters, what is the appropriate institutional level at which it operates? To answer these questions, we add to the usual explanatory variables of private savings three measures of institutional quality and six measures of institutional trust, distributed between the following institutional levels, presented in assumed hierarchical order: political, legal, financial and social. We find that trust in political institutions is the most significant driver of private savings. This contributes to the literature underlining the importance of subjectivity in social and economic phenomena and suggests, for private bank savings in countries having highly regulated banking systems, the existence of a hierarchy of trust in which trust in the highest-ranking institutions (political – and to a lesser extent legal – institutions) acts as a substitute for trust in every lower-ranking institution (financial institutions and social trust). |
| Abstract: | Cet article s'appuie sur la macroéconomie, l'économie des institutions et l'économie de la confiance pour expliquer l'épargne privée au niveau national dans 33 pays de l'OCDE (pour la plupart européens) de 2002 à 2012. Plus précisément, il soulève deux questions : (i) est-ce la qualité des institutions ou confiance dans les institutions qui stimulent l'épargne privée ? (ii) si la confiance est importante, quel est le niveau institutionnel approprié auquel elle opère ? Pour répondre à ces questions, nous ajoutons aux variables explicatives habituelles de l'épargne privée trois mesures de qualité institutionnelle et six mesures de confiance institutionnelle, réparties entre les niveaux institutionnels suivants, présentés dans un ordre hiérarchique supposé : politique, juridique, financier et social. Nous constatons que la confiance dans les institutions politiques est le moteur le plus important de l'épargne privée. Ceci contribue à la littérature soulignant l'importance de la subjectivité dans les phénomènes sociaux et économiques et suggère, pour l'épargne des banques privées dans les pays dotés de systèmes bancaires très réglementés, l'existence d'une hiérarchie de confiance dans laquelle la confiance dans les institutions les plus hautes (politiques – et dans une moindre mesure, les institutions juridiques) se substituent à la confiance dans toutes les institutions de rang inférieur (institutions financières et confiance sociale). |
| Keywords: | belief, institutional quality, social trust, private saving, subjectivity, institutional trust, property right |
| Date: | 2024–01–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04379761&r=soc |
| By: | Bogliacino, Francesco (Universidad Nacional de Colombia); Aycinena, Diego (Universidad del Rosario); Kimbrough, Erik |
| Abstract: | Bicchieri and Xiao (2009) pioneered a method for eliciting normative expectations. Using a two-step procedure, the method first elicits non-incentivized reports of subjects' Personal Normative Beliefs regarding the most appropriate action from a set of possible options. In the second step, subjects are incentivized to predict the distribution of beliefs reported by others in the first step, thus capturing their normative expectations. However, the lack of incentives in the first step of the method introduces the potential for belief falsification. One possible motive for falsification is Social Desirability Bias. We explain how such bias could, in theory, influence measurement of norms under this method and report pre-registered experiments designed to induce biased disclosure of beliefs in the first step. Our experiments vary the threat of sanctioning by third-party monitors: in one treatment, respondents may wish to falsify their reported beliefs about the norm in a variant of the dictator game. Pre-registered results show a relatively small and non-significant effect of SDB. We explore the underlying conditions that make SDB more likely to threaten the identification of normative expectations. Exploratory results suggest an important role of awareness of the incentives to misreport in the first stage -the information asymmetry between respondents and third parties in our design. Researchers who plan to use this method to measure sensitive local norms should be aware of the conditions under which this potential bias is likely to materialize and design their studies to minimize it. |
| Date: | 2024–04–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:7n4xd&r=soc |
| By: | F. Atzori; V. Pelligra |
| Abstract: | Understanding the factors influencing people's choices in tax compliance decision-making is still important because tax evasion is a crucial issue for governments everywhere. This lab experiment investigates how social norms influence tax compliance behavior. We examine the effects of positive and negative empirical and normative expectations using the opinion-matching approach for measurement. According to our results, normative expectations—as opposed to empirical expectations—most strongly impact people's behavior. Surprisingly, positive empirical messages may have a negative effect, increasing tax evasion. Furthering our understanding of the causes of tax evasion, we also include a norm-following task to assess participants' propensity to adhere to norms. This study presents new viewpoints on tax compliance while replicating some established conclusions from previous research sheds new light on the interaction between tax compliance and social norms. |
| Keywords: | H26;E26;O17;D91;C92 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cns:cnscwp:202407&r=soc |
| By: | Yusuf Agus (European University Institute); Betul Turkum (Aix-Marseille Univ., CNRS, AMSE, Marseille, France) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on classroom peer relationships using a unique field dataset collected from 3rd and 4th-grade students in Turkey. Using data from both pre-pandemic and pandemic cohorts, we find significant changes in social interactions among the pandemic cohort after prolonged school closures. We observe varying effects contingent upon the nature of peer relationships. While friendship relationships deteriorated, some facets of academic support relationships among classmates display enhancement. However, this progress is exclusively observed among native students, as opposed to refugees. Additionally, we uncover significant improvements in inter-ethnicity and inter-gender relationships in classrooms after COVID-19. |
| Keywords: | Peer relationships; COVID-19; classroom social networks; refugees |
| JEL: | D85 I21 I24 I28 J15 J16 |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aim:wpaimx:2415&r=soc |
| By: | Gabriele Gratton (UNSW Business School); Barton E. Lee (ETH Zurich) |
| Abstract: | We study a model of popular demand for anti-elite populist reforms that drain the swamp: replace experienced public servants with novices that will only acquire experience with time. Voters benefit from experienced public servants because they are more effective at delivering public goods and more competent at detecting emergency threats. However, public servants’ policy preferences do not always align with those of voters. This tradeoff produces two key forces in our model: public servants’ incompetence spurs disagreement between them and voters, and their effectiveness grants them more power to dictate policy. Both of these effects fuel mistrust between voters and public servants, sometimes inducing voters to drain the swamp in cycles of anti-elite populism. We study which factors can sustain a responsive democracy or induce a technocracy. When instead populism arises, we discuss which reforms may reduce the frequency of populist cycles, including recruiting of public servants and isolating them from politics. Our results support the view that a more inclusive and representative bureaucracy protects against anti-elite populism. We provide empirical evidence that lack of trust in public servants is a key force behind support for anti-elite populist parties and argue that our model helps explain the rise of anti-elite populism in large robust democracies. |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:swe:wpaper:2023-02b&r=soc |
| By: | Athias, Laure |
| Abstract: | The theory of social choice stresses that the general interest determined through the aggregation of individual preferences implies interpersonal utility comparisons and hence necessarily a notion of common good beyond individual preferences. The pursuit of the common good falls to all services of the state and drives their individual decisions. Economic model of identity in the workplace predicts that outsider public sector workers may internalize the common good value to minimize cognitive dissonance. To test this hypothesis, I study the dynamics of preferences for workers in public versus private sector jobs. For identification, I use panel data and exploit within-individual variations, alleviating endogeneity concern related to selection into occupation. Further addressing the dynamic omitted variable concern, I find that switching into the public sector increases by one third the likelihood of exhibiting the common good value while having a negative effect on public trust and left-wing ideology. By contrast, switching into the private sector crowds out common good value. Examining causal mechanisms, I show that the public sector effect is most pronounced for workers with higher dissonance costs. Furthermore, I find that workers adopting the common good value in the workplace adopt a general behavior consistent with active participation in the public realm, pointing to value internalization. Overall, this paper provides empirical evidence of a rich and rapid, dynamic interaction between individual preferences and economic institutions. |
| Keywords: | Value dynamics; Identity in the workplace; Cognitive dissonance; Common good; State; Public versus private sector; Crowding out effect; Workplace socialization; Institutional narrative. |
| JEL: | A13 D02 D63 D73 D83 H11 L33 N43 Z13 Z18 |
| Date: | 2024–03–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:120588&r=soc |