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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
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Issue of 2024–11–25
ten papers chosen by Fabio Sabatini, Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| 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: | Our study investigates how the devastating 2020-2022 Tigray War has affected the social preferences, reciprocity norms, and trust in a large sample of rural young adults in Tigray, Ethiopia, belonging to rural business groups. We rely on field experimental data with standardized incentivized experiments conducted in 2019 and 2023 to categorize subjects into social preference types. We also identify reciprocity norms, generosity, trustworthiness, and trust in in-group and out-group conditions for a large balanced sample (N=1939). The in-group framing is for subjects belonging to the same business group (N=238 business groups). The out-group is an unknown person from another business group in the same district. Overall, the war in Tigray has resulted in an erosion of within-community social capital. This erosion of social capital includes weakened reciprocity norms, a reduction in the share of the population that behaves altruistically or egalitarian, and a reduction in generosity, trustworthiness, and trust (reduction of 0.6-0.75 Cohen’s d units) that is strongest among those who behaved altruistically or egalitarian before the war. The same and similar effect sizes are also prevalent within business groups, but within business groups, social capital remains high compared to generalized social capital in the study areas. To a small extent, we find that differential exposure to violence or other war incidents among subjects explains the fairly large changes in social capital that our experiments revealed. This may imply that the war spillover effects overshadow the effects of individual war exposure. |
| Keywords: | War impacts; Social preferences; Reciprocity norms; Trust; Field experiment; Rural business groups; Ethiopia |
| JEL: | C93 D74 D84 D91 O12 |
| Date: | 2024–11–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nlsclt:2024_006 |
| By: | Abril, Veronica; Norza, Ervyn; Perez-Vincent, Santiago; Tobon, Santiago (Universidad EAFIT); Weintraub, Michael (Universidad de los Andes) |
| Abstract: | We study how improving police-citizen interactions increases public trust by experimentally evaluating a police training program in Colombia. The National Police retrained officers in procedural justice principles—such as fairness and respect—while instructing them to intensify citizen interactions. The intervention improved policing frequency, perceptions of fair treatment, and public trust. Our analysis points to strong complementarities between more and better policing: more interactions that lack good behavior or good behavior without increased interactions do not improve trust. We find no impacts on officers’ trust in citizens or beliefs about public trust, implying that institutional change may require more profound efforts. |
| Date: | 2024–10–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:mrh5q |
| By: | Guy Aridor; Rafael Jiménez-Durán; Ro'ee Levy; Lena Song |
| Abstract: | We provide a practical guide to designing, conducting, and analyzing experiments using social media platforms. First, we discuss the benefits and challenges of using the targeting capabilities of advertisements on social media to recruit participants for a large class of experiments. Next, we outline the different types of interventions and their advantages and disadvantages. Finally, we summarize available compliance and outcome data, as well as the main limitations and challenges involved in the design and analysis of social media experiments. Throughout, we provide technical details that are helpful when implementing these experiments. Overall, we argue that experiments on social media are powerful not only for studying economic issues around social media and online platforms but also for experiments studying economic behavior more broadly. |
| Keywords: | social media, experiments, digital interventions, subject recruitment, experiment design |
| JEL: | C90 C93 L82 L96 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11275 |
| By: | Berniell, Inés (University of La Plata); Gasparini, Leonardo (Universidad Nacional de la Plata); Marchionni, Mariana (Universidad Nacional de la Plata); Viollaz, Mariana (CEDLAS-UNLP) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impact of economic fluctuations on social norms, specifically exploring the link between changes in unemployment and shifts in attitudes toward gender roles in the labor market. The results are not immediately obvious, as the literature suggests several potential mechanisms with conflicting outcomes. Using microdata from the World Values Survey for a panel of 103 countries that cover close to 90% of the world population, we estimate individual-level probability models of agreement with traditional gender roles over the period 1995 to 2021, including country and year fixed effects. We find that an increase in unemployment is associated to more conservative views about gender roles in the labor market. This result is remarkably robust across different groups and specifications. We also find that some contextual factors matter. In particular, the link between higher unemployment and more conservative views on gender roles is stronger in countries with, on average, higher gender inequality and lower female labor force participation. Overall, this study contributes to a growing body of research on the complex relationship between economic conditions, gender norms, and social change. |
| Keywords: | unemployment, business cycle, attitudes, social norms, gender values, gender |
| JEL: | J16 J21 J22 J31 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17375 |
| By: | Sanjit Dhami; Mengxing Wei |
| Abstract: | In a principal-agent model under moral hazard we examine the psychological and social motivations of the agent that influence the incentive compatibility condition (ICC) of the agent. Under “firm culture” firms emphasize that high effort is consistent with its culture. Under “industry-wide social norms” external to the firm, the social group emphasizes high effort levels. We only consider the case where the ICC is violated in the classical case. A significant fraction of the agents choose high effort. Firm culture backed by simple disapproval of low effort is more effective relative to our baseline under fixed wages. Strong social norms are as effective as firm culture under variable wages, but more effective under fixed wages. Firm culture dominates weak social norms. Variable wages induce high effort (incentive effects) but also crowd out intrinsic motivation in the form of (i) guilt aversion from not following firm culture and (ii) shame aversion from not following social norms. |
| Keywords: | incentive compatibility, insurance and incentives, firm culture, guilt-aversion, social norms, shame-aversion |
| JEL: | D01 D91 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11371 |
| By: | Raúl Duarte; Frederico Finan; Horacio Larreguy; Laura Schechter |
| Abstract: | Politicians rely on political brokers to buy votes throughout much of the developing world. We investigate how social networks facilitate these vote-buying exchanges. Our conceptual framework suggests brokers should be particularly well-placed within the network to learn about non-copartisans’ reciprocity in order to target transfers effectively. As a result, parties should recruit brokers who are central among non-copartisans. We combine village network data from brokers and citizens with broker reports of vote buying, allowing us to use broker and citizen fixed effects. We show that networks diffuse information about citizens to brokers who leverage it to target transfers. In particular, among those citizens who are not registered to their party, brokers target reciprocal citizens about whom they can learn more through their network, and these citizens are more likely to support the brokers’ party. Moreover, recruited brokers are significantly more central than other citizens among non-copartisans, but not among copartisans. These results highlight the importance of information diffusion through social networks for vote buying, broker recruitment, and ultimately for political outcomes. |
| Keywords: | vote buying, brokers, social networks |
| JEL: | D72 O12 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11349 |
| By: | Abril, Veronica; Perez-Vincent, Santiago; Tobon, Santiago (Universidad EAFIT); Vanegas-Arias, Martin |
| Abstract: | This study explores whether procedurally just interactions between police and citizens enhance perceptions of police legitimacy in high-crime environments. We conducted a representative in-person survey across five major Colombian cities, covering about 7 million residents. The survey included a vignette experiment presenting respondents with one of four scenarios that varied police officer respectfulness—characterized by clear communication of intentions—and neutrality. Our findings reveal that respectful behavior from officers significantly boosts citizens' perceptions of police legitimacy. In contrast, neutrality alone, or even combined with respect, does not affect these perceptions. This suggests that respect is an important component of procedural justice in fostering police legitimacy, while the standalone importance of neutrality is questionable. Policymakers should note that emphasizing respectful interactions in police training can foster greater trust and cooperation within communities, aiding effective crime prevention and community policing efforts. Conversely, focusing solely on neutrality without ensuring respect may be insufficient, possibly due to citizens' biases toward specific stereotypes. |
| Date: | 2024–10–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:67urc |
| By: | David Jesuit |
| Abstract: | This chapter develops multilevel models to explore the connection between government performance and trust in public servants in 22 countries for which comparable data are available. Government performance is operationalized as both an outcome and a process and at both the individual- and national-levels. The dependent variable, trust in public managers, is measured using the International Social Survey Program’s Module on the “Role of Government IV.” This survey also measures individual satisfaction with policy outcomes as well as the fairness of bureaucratic processes. National policy outcomes such as unemployment and inflation rates are included using various sources. Significantly, unlike much previous research, estimates of income inequality and poverty are also included in the analyses. The World Governance Indicators provide measures of the quality of governmental processes at the national level. Results suggest that the quality of bureaucratic processes has a substantial influence on trust regardless of outcomes. With respect to outcomes, unemployment has a consistently negative effect while inequality and poverty mediate the relationship of affluence on trust in government. |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lis:liswps:875 |
| By: | Rhys Murrian (Department of Economics and SoDa Labs, Monash University); Paul A. Raschky (Department of Economics and SoDa Labs, Monash University); Klaus Ackermann (Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics and SoDa Labs, Monash University) |
| Abstract: | This paper empirically investigates how an individual’s network influences their purchase and subsequent use of experience goods. Utilising data on the network and game-ownership of over 108 million users from the world’s largest video game platform, we analyse whether a user’s friendship network influences their decision to purchase single-player video games. Our identification strategy uses an instrumental variable (IV) approach that employs the temporal lag of purchasing decisions from second degree friends. We find strong peer effects in the individual game adoption in the contemporary week. The effect is stronger if the friend who purchased the game is an old friend compared to a key player in the friendship network. Comparing the results to adoption decisions for a major label game, we find peer effects of a similar size and duration. However, the time subsequently spent playing the games is higher for players who were neither influenced by a peer who is a key player nor an old friend. Considering the increasing importance of online networks on consumption decisions, our findings offer some first insights on the heterogeneity of peer effects between old and key player friends and also provide evidence in consumers’ biases in social learning. |
| Keywords: | networks, experience goods, product adoption, taste projection |
| JEL: | D12 Z13 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2024-17 |
| By: | Sabrina T. Howell; Dean Parker; Ting Xu |
| Abstract: | The central tension in securities regulation is between protecting investors and enabling broad capital formation. Focusing on VC fund managers, we study key tools of investor protection in private markets: enforcing relationship-based fundraising and restricting eligible investors. A new policy permitting public advertising is disproportionately used by less well-networked, underrepresented fund managers and is less sensitive to local conditions. Yet it has limited take-up because track record matters at arm’s length while strong networks matter in relationship financing; underrepresented managers more often have neither. Arm’s length fundraising also imposes costs to accessing the “crowd” and verifying investors, inducing negative signaling. |
| JEL: | G21 G23 G32 J15 J16 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33080 |