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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
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Issue of 2025–07–14
ten papers chosen by Fabio Sabatini, Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Matthew O. Jackson |
| Abstract: | I discuss economic and social sources of inequality and elaborate on the role of social networks in inequality, economic immobility, and economic inefficiencies. The lens of social networks clarifies how the entanglement of people's information, opportunities, and behaviors with those of their friends and family leads to persistent differences across communities, resulting in inequality in education, employment, income, health, and wealth. The key role of homophily in separating groups within the network is highlighted. A network perspective's policy implications differ substantially from a narrower economic perspective that ignores social structure. I discuss the importance of ``policy cocktails'' that include aspects that are aimed at both the economic and social forces driving inequality. |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2506.13016 |
| By: | Yann Bramoull´e; Sanjeev Goyal; Massimo Morelli |
| Abstract: | Most societies in the world contain strong group identities and the culture supporting these groups is highly persistent. This persistence in turn gives rise to a practical problem: how do and should societies with strong group identities organize themselves for exchange and public good provision? In this paper, we develop a theoretical framework that allows us to study, normatively and positively, the relationship between social structure, state capacity, and economic activity. |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:baf:cbafwp:cbafwp25242 |
| By: | Francesco Agostinelli; Matthias Doepke; Giuseppe Sorrenti; Fabrizio Zilibotti |
| Abstract: | This chapter argues that parenting choices are a central force in the joint evolution of culture and economic outcomes. We present a framework in which parents - motivated by both their children’s future success and their own normative beliefs - choose parenting styles and transmit cultural traits responding to economic incentives. Values such as work ethic, patience, and religiosity are more likely to be instilled when their anticipated returns, economic or otherwise, are high. The interaction between parenting and economic conditions gives rise to endogenous cultural and economic stratification. We extend the model to include residential sorting and social interactions, showing how neighborhood choice reinforces disparities in trust and human capital. Empirical evidence from the World Values Survey supports the model’s key predictions. We conclude by highlighting open questions at the intersection of parenting, culture, and inequality. |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11936 |
| By: | Gabriele Gratton; Barton E. Lee |
| 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: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:baf:cbafwp:cbafwp25244 |
| By: | Andrés Barrios Fernández; Christopher Neilson; Seth Zimmerman |
| Abstract: | From Cambridge and Oxford to Harvard and Yale, elite universities are a feature of many education systems. Andrés Barrios Fernández, Christopher Neilson and Seth Zimmerman ask whether these institutions of higher education help to promote social mobility. |
| Keywords: | elite universities, intergenerational mobility, human capital, social capital |
| Date: | 2025–06–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepcnp:709 |
| By: | Sanchaita Hazra; Marta Serra-Garcia |
| Abstract: | LLMs are emerging as information sources that influence organizational knowledge, though trust in them varies. This paper combines data from a large-scale experiment and the World Values Survey (WVS) to examine the determinants of trust in LLMs. The experiment measures trust in LLM-generated answers to policy-relevant questions among over 2, 900 participants across 11 countries. Trust in the LLM is significantly lower in high-income countries-especially among individuals with right-leaning political views and lower educational attainment-compared to low- and middle-income countries. Using large-scale data on trust from the WVS, we show that patterns of trust in the LLM differ from those in generalized trust but closely align with trust in traditional information sources. These findings highlight that comparing trust in LLMs to other forms of societal trust can deepen our understanding of the potential societal impacts of AI. |
| Keywords: | information, generative AI, accuracy, trust, experiment |
| JEL: | D83 D91 C72 C91 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11954 |
| By: | Nicola Fontana (Department of Economics, Trinity College Dublin) |
| Abstract: | Urbanization has transformed cities into the economic hubs of high-income countries, yet concerns about declining social capital persist. This paper investigates the impact of changes in neighbourhood composition on social capital within London. I show how neighbourhoods with higher short-term renting penetration experience a reduction in charitable organizations and increased feelings of loneliness. These results cannot be attributed uniquely to a change of composition in the long-term residents, but they also reflect changes in the behaviours of residents. Moreover, I find that higher short-term renting penetration is associated with a decrease in neighbourhood quality. |
| Keywords: | Civic Engagement; Social Capital; Short-term Renting |
| JEL: | P00 A13 Z18 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tcd:tcduee:tep0525 |
| By: | Arti Grover (The World Bank Group); Mariana Viollaz (CEDLAS-IIE-FCE-UNLP) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides evidence on the nature of financial constraints faced by women entrepreneurs, especially in contexts of stringent social norms. Using micro-data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys for 61 countries, the analysis shows that formal firms managed by women do not face credit constraints on the extensive margin. They are equally likely to apply for credit as their male counterparts and experience lower rates of credit rejection, with a higher likelihood of opening credit lines. However, on the intensive margin, firms managed by women receive lower credit amounts, indicating signs of credit constraints. This disparity in access to credit cannot be explained by gender differences in risk profiles, profitability, or productivity. However, firms managed by women have lower sales per worker, suggesting challenges in accessing product and labor markets. The paper finds suggestive evidence of capital misallocation based on gender, particularly in countries with more restrictive gender and cultural norms. Firms managed by women demonstrate a 15 percent higher average return on capital compared to firms managed by men, indicating the potential benefits of increased access to credit for women-led businesses. These findings emphasize the importance of addressing gender-specific constraints to accessing finance and promoting gender-inclusive policies to enhance firm growth and reduce capital misallocation. |
| JEL: | D22 D24 J16 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dls:wpaper:0352 |
| By: | Hunt Allcott; Matthew Gentzkow; Ro’ee Levy; Adriana Crespo-Tenorio; Natasha Dumas; Winter Mason; Devra Moehler; Pablo Barbera; Taylor W. Brown; Juan Carlos Cisneros; Drew Dimmery; Deen Freelon; Sandra González-Bailón; Andrew M. Guess; Young Mie Kim; David Lazer; Neil Malhotra; Sameer Nair-Desai; Brendan Nyhan; Ana Carolina Paixao de Queiroz; Jennifer Pan; Jaime Settle; Emily Thorson; Rebekah Tromble; Carlos Velasco Rivera; Benjamin Wittenbrink; Magdalena Wojcieszak; Shiqi Yang; Saam Zahedian; Annie Franco; Chad Kiewiet de Jonge; Natalie Jomini Stroud; Joshua A. Tucker |
| Abstract: | We study the effects of social media political advertising by randomizing subsets of 36, 906 Facebook users and 25, 925 Instagram users to have political ads removed from their news feeds for six weeks before the 2020 US presidential election. We show that most presidential ads were targeted toward parties’ own supporters and that fundraising ads were most common. On both Facebook and Instagram, we found no detectable effects of removing political ads on political knowledge, polarization, perceived legitimacy of the election, political participation (including campaign contributions), candidate favorability, and turnout. This was true overall and for both Democrats and Republicans separately. |
| JEL: | D90 L82 O33 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33818 |
| By: | Mendoza, Karl Patrick Regala (Polytechnic University of the Philippines) |
| Abstract: | This research note engages political trust debates by foregrounding tiwala (trust) and pagsunod (submission) as relational, moral practices in Philippine urban governance. Drawing on five pilot interviews in Barangay Pinagbuhatan, Pasig City, it argues that trust is not merely an evaluative attitude or rational calculation but a dynamic, culturally mediated moral economy. This perspective challenges dominant Western-centric models that treat trust as a rational, pre-political disposition stabilizing democratic order. Building on an emerging trust cultures framework, the note shows how tiwala and pagsunod reveal trust as continuously contested and reshaped in everyday negotiations of care, legitimacy, and relational presence. These preliminary insights highlight how residents’ moral evaluations of leaders go beyond personalistic charisma to assess governance systems’ responsiveness and moral credibility. They also point to how hybrid governance environments—digital and face-to-face—shape trust cultures in transitional democracies. These reflections guide future comparative work across the Tiwala at Pagsunod (TaP) project’s three-city study. |
| Date: | 2025–06–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:tv4jk_v1 |