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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
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Issue of 2026–05–18
ten papers chosen by Fabio Sabatini, Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Ali Abboud; Samuel Bazzi; Serena Canaan; Antoine Deeb; Pierre Mouganie |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how authority figures in higher education shape gender norms over the long run. We exploit the random assignment of first-year students to faculty advisors at an elite university in the Middle East and combine administrative records with an alumni survey measuring gender attitudes up to 24 years later. Women assigned to female advisors adopt more egalitarian views about politics and work, while men become more conservative. These effects are strongest among religious students and in male-dominated STEM fields, where female authority is especially counter-stereotypical. The effects may persist through reinforcement, as women assigned to female advisors later sort toward female instructors and more gender-themed courses. Our results do not appear to be driven by generic exposure to successful women. Instead, they point to a distinct role for authority in transmitting gender norms: randomized exposure to high-achieving female peers has little effect, while the largest impacts come from senior and high-value-added female advisors. A simple framework combining belief updating and identity-based status threat helps explain these patterns of female empowerment and male backlash. More broadly, our findings reveal a progress paradox whereby gains in female representation in elite authority expand opportunities for women while intensifying backlash among men, thereby deepening gender polarization. |
| JEL: | I24 J16 J24 P00 Z12 Z13 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35174 |
| By: | Christian Koch; Jean-Robert Tyran |
| Abstract: | Radical Right (RR) political parties have become increasingly radicalized on immigration across many developed countries. We study whether exposure to slanted (i.e., one-sided) news shifts policy views of RR voters on immigration in Austria. In an online experiment, participants received slanted news about the effects of immigration on the welfare state. We find that anti-immigration news further radicalizes RR voters by reinforcing extreme policy views, while slanted pro-immigration news has no de-radicalizing effect. Surprisingly, balanced news — presenting both sides — reduces radicalization. We show that balanced news coverage increases trust, thereby increasing RR voters’ receptiveness to opposing viewpoints. |
| Keywords: | radical right voters, fiscal impact of immigration, anti-immigration views, trust in news media, online experiment |
| JEL: | C90 D72 F22 H30 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12659 |
| By: | Chaim Fershtman (Tel Aviv University); Uzi Segal (Boston College) |
| Abstract: | We analyze societies where people express their opinions with respect to a single issue. These opinions also affect social connections. People enjoy being connected to others, but only with those whose opinions they deem acceptable. In such environments people behave strategically to optimize their social connections and therefore their expressed opinions do not necessarily represent their true ones. Dis- tributions of expressed opinions thus depend on the social structure. Changes in the views of some people or changes in the relative size of different groups may trigger changes in the map of social connections and in the distribution of expressed opinions. |
| Keywords: | Strategic opinion expression, social connections |
| JEL: | Z13 D85 |
| Date: | 2026–05–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boc:bocoec:1111 |
| By: | Eric Chyn; Katherine Cohen; Kareem Haggag; Bryan A. Stuart |
| Abstract: | In the United States, long hailed as the land of opportunity, is access to political office truly open across society, or do the most privileged children disproportionately rise to enter political life? This question speaks to a longstanding concern that elite families may entrench themselves in positions of power, reproducing a form of hereditary privilege within a democratic system. We study the family backgrounds of U.S. politicians over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and show that children from wealthy and privileged households have been substantially overrepresented in elected office. This imbalance has changed little over time and, at the highest levels of office, varies little across political parties. To test whether political access depends on family resources, we exploit the sudden economic shock caused by the end of slavery. Despite the large and concentrated losses at the top of the wealth distribution, the children of slaveholders continued to enter government at high rates. Finally, we examine whether politicians' socioeconomic origins shape policy by constructing a new sample of close elections linked to detailed information on U.S. House candidates' family backgrounds. Comparing otherwise similar districts in which a candidate from a high socioeconomic status family narrowly wins rather than loses, we find that districts represented by higher status candidates are less likely to support pro-tax positions in roll-call voting. Together, the evidence across our analyses shows that family background strongly predicts entry into political office and has measurable consequences for policy choices. |
| JEL: | H10 H70 J45 J62 P16 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35180 |
| By: | Kanato Nakakuni; Michèle Tertilt; Minchul Yum |
| Abstract: | This chapter examines how social norms shape fer lity behavior. We first present cross-country evidence linking fer lity to norms regarding family size, childcare, gender roles, paren ng, and sexual behavior. We also review empirical studies showing substan al fer lity spillovers within families, workplaces, and social networks. To interpret these pa erns, we present a series of models to clarify the mechanisms through which norms and fer lity decisions interact. We organize the theories by type of norm: norms about ideal family size, norms governing the use of market childcare, gender norms within the household, paren ng norms related to educa onal investment and social comparison, and norms surrounding birth control. We discuss how changes in social norms over me may have contributed to fer lity decline. Finally, we highlight promising direc ons for future research. |
| Keywords: | Fertility, Social Norms, Externality, Pro-natal Policies |
| JEL: | D1 D62 I28 J13 N3 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2025_747 |
| By: | Holden, Stein T. (Centre for Land Tenure Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences); Tione, Sarah (Centre for Land Tenure Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences); Tilahun, Mesfin (Centre for Land Tenure Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences); Katengeza, Samson (Centre for Land Tenure Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences) |
| Abstract: | Trust and trustworthiness are central to economic development and are frequently studied using behavioral experiments. A concern is that such evidence often relies on student samples, raising questions about external validity. While existing studies, largely from high income countries, suggest that students represent a lower bound on pro-social behavior, little is known about whether it generalizes to low-income country contexts. <p> This paper compares trust, trustworthiness, beliefs, and reciprocity norms between large representative samples of university students and rural adults in Malawi using incentivized trustgame experiments with consistent ingroup–outgroup framing. We show that, contrary to prevailing expectations, students exhibit higher levels of trust and trustworthiness than rural adults. While social distance plays a stronger role among rural adults in form of ingroup–outgroup differences in trustworthiness, such a difference was not found for trust. Surprisingly, we found stronger reciprocity norms and more optimistic beliefs about expected returns among students. <p> Analyzing beliefs and norms as mechanisms, we find that beliefs are associated with trust, while reciprocity norms are strongly related to trustworthiness. Strong norms enhance reciprocity behavior, and especially so in the student sample. <p> Overall, the results demonstrate that assumptions about student samples do not transfer straightforwardly across contexts. In low-income countries, students may not provide a lower bound on pro-social behavior. Social distance, reciprocity norms, and beliefs about the trustworthiness of others can strongly influence cooperation. The findings underscore the value of within-country comparisons for assessing external validity and have implications for the design and interpretation of experimental evidence in development research. |
| Keywords: | Trust game; University students; Rural subjects; External validity; Norms; Beliefs |
| JEL: | C92 D01 D64 O12 |
| Date: | 2026–05–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nlsclt:2026_003 |
| By: | Rafael Gomez; Alex Bryson; Paul Willman |
| Abstract: | We review the social science literature on trust and cooperation with application to labour-management relations. We begin with the neo-classical economic view of self-regarding individuals operating with perfect information and show that once one abandons the dyadic case with perfect information, cooperation deteriorates as group size increases and the probability of behavioural or perceptual error rises. In fact, we show that self-regarding models have no way of explaining cooperative outcomes between management and labour under typical conditions and lead to less optimal forms of non-cooperative strategic bargaining. By way of contrast, models of cooperation with other-regarding preferences and trust - drawn from behavioural economics, social psychological, economic sociology and industrial relations literatures - show that a high level of cooperation can be attained even in large groups, with modest informational requirements, and that conditions allowing the evolution of trust and other-regarding social preferences are plausible and find empirical support. We also show that actors' perceptions of the employment relationship (i.e., Fox's frame of reference approach) underpin assumptions (implicit or otherwise) of human nature, which is what inevitably determines strategies (cooperative or otherwise) used in labour-management relations. |
| Keywords: | trust; cooperation; labor-management relations |
| JEL: | J5 J53 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26128 |
| By: | Eugen Dimant; Michele Gelfand; Anna Hochleitner; Silvia Sonderegger |
| Abstract: | Social sanctions sustain social order by reinforcing widely accepted principles. Political polarization may weaken this mechanism by fragmenting these principles, yet causal effects are hard to identify: observational data cannot separate the effect of polarized preferences from exposure to polarization. We model theoretically and test experimentally the effectiveness of social sanctions in a representative U.S. sample (N = 2, 400) that exogenously varies environmental polarization. Participants allocate money between politically opposed recipients privately and publicly, and public allocations can be punished by partisan Observers drawn from distributions varying in their degree of polarization. With greater polarization, public allocations become less equitable because participants (correctly) expect punishment even when acting fairly. This shows that polarization causally undermines the disciplining role of social sanctions. |
| Keywords: | polarization, social punishment, equitable behavior |
| JEL: | C91 D01 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12660 |
| By: | Henrik Kleven; Camille Landais; Anne Sophie Lassen; Philip Rosenbaum; Herdis Steingrimsdottir; Jakob Egholt Søgaard |
| Abstract: | We study whether policy can shift gendered beliefs, norms, and labor market outcomes by exploiting a major expansion of earmarked paternity leave in Denmark. The reform generated large first-stage effects, substantially reallocating leave from mothers to fathers. Using a regression discontinuity design combined with new survey data linked to administrative records, we show that the reform makes parents more supportive of paternity leave, shifts gender-role beliefs in a progressive direction, and reduces perceived differences in childcare ability. The reform also narrows gender gaps in earnings and hours worked. The earnings gap falls by 34pp in the first year following childbirth (during leave) and by 2.8pp in the second year (after leave). These results demonstrate that policy can meaningfully influence beliefs, norms, and gender inequality. On the other hand, earmarking restricts families' ability to allocate leave freely and lowers leave satisfaction, highlighting a central trade-off inherent in paternalistic policies. |
| Keywords: | Paternity Leave, Gender Norms, Gender Wage Gap |
| JEL: | J13 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26123 |
| By: | Balestra, Mattia; Cainelli, Giulio; Ganau, Roberto; Matsiuk, Nadiia; Pasquato, Mario; Pierdicca, Roberto |
| Abstract: | We combine history with economic geography to shed light on the long-run determinants of territorial development differentials in Italy. Specifically, we study the effects of historical sovereignty change on current local economic development. We measure historical sovereignty change as the yearly number of changes of sovereignty that occurred in the period 1000–1861—that is, until the unification of Italy—and assess its effects on labor productivity in 2018. We estimate a negative effect of historical sovereignty change on current local economic development, and identify—both theoretically and empirically—civic capital as a plausible underlying mechanism. |
| Keywords: | historical sovereignty change; civic capital; Italy; local economic development |
| JEL: | R11 N00 |
| Date: | 2026–05–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:138356 |