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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
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Issue of 2026–08–17
sixteen papers chosen by Fabio Sabatini, Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Aksoy, Cevat Giray; Eichengreen, Barry; Litina, Anastasia; Özgüzel, Cem; Yu, Chan |
| Abstract: | Scholars and politicians have expressed concern that immigrants from countries with low levels of political trust transfer those attitudes to their destination countries. Using large-scale survey data covering 38 countries and exploiting origin-country variation across different cohorts and survey rounds, we show that, to the contrary, immigrants more exposed to institutional corruption before migrating exhibit higher levels of political trust in their new country. Higher trust is observed for national political institutions only and does not carry over to other supra-national institutions and individuals. We report evidence that higher levels of political trust among immigrants persist, leading to greater electoral participation and political engagement in the long run. The impact of home-country corruption on political trust in the destination country is further amplified by large differences in levels of income and democracy between home and host countries, which serve to highlight the contrast in the two settings. It is lessened by exposure to media, a source of information about institutional quality. Finally, our extensive analyses indicate that self-selection into host countries based on trust is highly unlikely and the results hold even when focusing only on forced migrants who were unlikely to have been subject to selection. |
| Keywords: | Corruption; Institutions; Immigrants |
| JEL: | Z1 D73 |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19775 |
| By: | Rozo, Sandra |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the medium-run effects, 4.5 years after launch, of a regularization program that granted temporary legal status, freedom of movement, work authorization, and access to social programs to nearly half a million Venezuelan forced migrants in Colombia with no criminal record. Because the program was announced unexpectedly and applied retroactively to migrants who had registered in a census before a sharp eligibility cutoff, the paper identifies its effects using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design and a unique two-wave panel survey. The largest medium-run gains were in social capital. At the cutoff, eligible migrants scored 0.95 standard deviation higher than ineligible peers on a social integration index capturing belonging, friendships with Colombians, community participation, and attachment to Colombia, and 0.97 standard deviation higher on a prosocial behavior index measuring generalized trust and trust toward both Colombians and Venezuelans. Neither effect is detectable in the short run, and both emerge only over time. Economic gains, by contrast, arose immediately and largely persisted. Eligible migrants earned 69 percent higher monthly labor income, scored 2.6 standard deviations higher on a service access index, and made substantial investments in housing, with housing quality increasing from 0.60 to 1.27 standard deviations between survey waves. The implied fiscal savings to Colombia also increased over time, rising from roughly 40 to 70 percent of the fiscal cost associated with irregular households as beneficiaries moved toward fiscal balance. These findings suggest that the largest social capital and fiscal returns to regularization accrued gradually through sustained legal inclusion and repeated positive interactions with institutions and host communities rather than through the act of legalization itself. |
| Date: | 2026–07–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11427 |
| By: | Lovenheim, Michael (Cornell University); van Egeraat, Eppie (NHH); Willén, Alexander (Norwegian School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | We use Norwegian register data to examine how social capital is transmitted across generations. We construct a measure of families' social position based on six dimensions: elite education, elite occupation, executive status, corporate elite, elite positions in top firms, and elite tract. Social capital is highly persistent across generations and strongly predicts children’s income and access to elite positions, even conditional on parental income, wealth, education, and ability. Horse-race regressions suggest that social capital is a distinct dimension of advantage that is as important as parental income and cognitive ability in shaping children's outcomes. The influence of social capital grows over the life cycle, and reaching the top of the income distribution requires both high inherited income and social capital. Accounting for social capital also alters conventional estimates of income-based mobility, indicating that part of what is typically attributed to inherited income reflects the transmission of social position. Quasi-experimental evidence from adoptions and parental lottery prizes suggests that these patterns reflect environmental transmission rather than genetic inheritance or direct financial resources. |
| Keywords: | social capital, intergenerational mobility, inequality, elite positions |
| JEL: | J1 J2 J6 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18862 |
| By: | Herrera, Helios; Trombetta, Federico |
| Abstract: | We define populism as a platform proposing a policy based on a mis-specified model of the world, a simple alternative worldview. Voters’ trust in the traditional/mainstream political class evolves over time and depends on traditional politicians’ performance once in offce. Crucially, political distrust behaviourally increases how gullible voters are to the simple alternative worldviews proposed by populists. Traditional politicians are aware of the populist threat and try to prevent it. In this novel framework we study when voters select populist politicians, how populist and their alternative worldviews survive/recur and their long-run effect on several measures of voter’s welfare. We show that the link between distrust and alt-truth gives rise a to a low-trust trap, where trust in the political class never recovers, leading to populists recurring in power. This trap/cycles need not always be detrimental to voters, as the increased pervasiveness of alt-worldviews also has a disciplining effect on traditional politicians. |
| JEL: | D72 D83 D91 P0 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19674 |
| By: | Kamei, Kenju; Putterman, Louis; Tabero, Katy; Tyran, Jean-Robert |
| Abstract: | Corruption is the great disease of government. It undermines the efficiency of the public sector in many countries around the world. We experimentally study civic engagement (CE) as a constraint on corruption when incentives are stacked against providing CE. We show that CE is powerful in curbing corruption when citizens can encourage each other to provide CE through social approval. Social approval induces strategic complementarity among conditional cooperators which counteracts the strategic substitutability (which tends to limit beneficial effects of CE) built into our design. We also show that civic engagement in the lab is correlated with civic engagement in the field, and that the effects of social approval are surprisingly robust to framing in our setting. |
| Keywords: | Corruption; Civic engagement; Public sector; Public goods |
| JEL: | C92 D73 D91 H41 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19834 |
| By: | Gary Charness; Francesco Feri; Matthew Jackson; Miguel Melendez-Jimenez; Matthias Sutter |
| Abstract: | We provide a first causal analysis of the behavioral consequences of the friendship paradox—the fact that people’s friends in a network have more connections than average. We find that people’s behavior is biased by their network position: they do not best respond to what they should infer the average behavior of the population to be, but instead simply to the average behavior of their friends. Moreover, we find that they fail to learn to overcome such a bias when relocated within the network, varying their observational environment. In these games of complements, the friendship paradox generates a systematic upward distortion in actions, increases behavioral dispersion, and persists despite learning opportunities. |
| Keywords: | friendship paradox, networks, learning, experiment |
| JEL: | C91 D01 D85 D90 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12905 |
| By: | Muringani, Jonathan; Fitjar, Rune; Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the complex relationship between political and social trust, government quality, and economic development across 208 regions in the European Union (EU). We use a pooled data generalized structural equation model (GSEM) to show that political trust serves as a fundamental driver of regional economic development in the EU. Political trust is, in turn, influenced by both social trust and government quality. Social trust and government quality have quadratic effects on political trust, showing diminishing returns, while the effect of political trust on economic development is linear. Political trust mediates the relationship between social trust and economic development entirely, while government quality retains a direct relationship with economic development. These findings underscore the fundamental role that political trust plays as a mechanism through which both formal and informal institutions shape regional development. |
| JEL: | O43 R11 H11 D73 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19622 |
| By: | Cavapozzi, Danilo; Francesconi, Marco; Nicoletti, Cheti |
| Abstract: | Using UK longitudinal data on dual-earner couples, this paper estimates a model of intrahousehold housework decisions, which combines a randomized experimental framework eliciting counterfactual choices with gender norms differences across ethnicities and cohorts to identify the impacts of individual preferences and gender identity norms. Equal sharing of tasks yields greater utility for both men and women, with women disliking domestic chores as much as men. Although couples would want to use housework arrangements to compensate for differentials in labor market involvement, women end up performing a substantially larger share of housework. This is not due to specialization, rather social norms play a key role. Exposure to more egalitarian gender attitudes significantly increases the probability of choosing an equal share of housework. Were attitudes evened up to the most progressive levels observed in the sample, women doing more housework than their partners would stop to be the norm already among present-day households, except for households with children. |
| Keywords: | Labor supply; Gender gaps |
| JEL: | C25 C26 D13 J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19726 |
| By: | Kaleem, Hira; Sakakibara, Anri; Wadho, Waqar; Siddique, Abu |
| Abstract: | Female labor force participation in LMICs remains persistently low, despite improvements in women's education, fertility, and income that would normally predict higher participation. We argue that this pattern can reflect a coordination failure sustained by miscalibrated second-order beliefs about community approval of women working outside the home. In many households, a woman's employment is determined by more than one decision-maker, and each may care about the perceived approval of both men and women in the community. Therefore, the binding misperception can lie in any of four belief cells: men's beliefs about men, men's beliefs about women, women's beliefs about men, or women's beliefs about women. We study these possibilities using novel primary survey data from more than 4, 000 low-income Pakistani households. Within households, we elicit each respondent's own support for women's work, second-order beliefs about community support, and the target woman's labor-market behavior, comparing households within the same census block. We find that support for women's work is widely underestimated, especially support among women, so communities are substantially more accepting than their members believe. The belief most strongly associated with a woman's search and work history is her own perception of other women's approval. Male household members' beliefs matter mainly for women's current employment status, consistent with their role in granting permission. The belief that appears most important is also correlated across generations along gender lines: mothers' beliefs about women predict daughters' beliefs about women. Evidence on mechanisms points most strongly to social learning about respectability rather than the anticipation of social sanctions from other women. |
| Keywords: | Women working outside the home, social norms, misperceptions, second-order beliefs, pluralistic ignorance, peer effects, Pakistan |
| JEL: | J16 J22 D13 D83 O12 Z13 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1786 |
| By: | Hermes, Henning; Krauss, Marina; Lergetporer, Philipp; Peter, Frauke; Wiederhold, Simon |
| Abstract: | This field experiment investigates the causal impact of mothers’ perceptions of gender norms on their employment attitudes and labor-supply expectations. We provide mothers of young children in Germany with information about the prevailing gender norm regarding maternal employment in their city. At baseline, over 70% of mothers incorrectly perceive this gender norm as too conservative. Our randomized treatment improves the accuracy of these perceptions, significantly reducing the share of mothers who misperceive gender norms as overly conservative. The treatment also shifts mothers’ own labor-market attitudes towards being more liberal—and we show that specifically the shifted attitude is a strong predictor of mothers’ future labor-market participation. Consistently, treated mothers are significantly more likely to plan an increase in their working hours one year ahead. |
| JEL: | J16 J18 J22 C93 |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19800 |
| By: | Lídia Farré; Christina Felfe; Libertad González; Patrick Schneider |
| Abstract: | Social norms are an important barrier to gender convergence in economic outcomes. We study whether a public policy designed to promote gender equality at home can pave the way towards gender convergence by shaping gender norms in the next generation. We exploit the introduction of paid paternity leave in Spain in 2007, which granted fathers 13 days of non-transferable paid leave after childbirth. Eligibility depended sharply on the child’s date of birth. We combine this policy variation with original survey data collected from adolescents and implement a within-school difference-in-differences design comparing children born just before and after the reform cutoff within the same school cohort, using adjacent cohorts as controls. Children exposed to paternity leave eligibility display more egalitarian gender attitudes and beliefs in early adolescence. They are also more likely to engage in counter-stereotypical household chores, and hold less gender-stereotypical expectations regarding future work and family roles. The effects largely disappear in late adolescence. |
| Keywords: | gender equality, gender norms, paternity leave permits |
| JEL: | J08 J13 J16 J18 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12863 |
| By: | Xue, Xindong (Zhongnan University of Economics and Law); Ye, Chunchen (Hubei Academy of Healthcare Security Reform and Development); Rocco, Lorenzo (University of Padova) |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of retirement on social capital in urban China. Using three waves of the China Family Panel Studies (2018–2022) and a fuzzy regression discontinuity design based on China's statutory retirement ages, we document that retirement does not raise or lower social capital uniformly but reallocates it. Retirement causes bridging social capital to fall and bonding social capital to rise. The reallocation is concentrated among men, whose pre-retirement networks are more heavily workplace-centered. As governments around the world postpone statutory retirement ages in response to population ageing, our estimates imply that pension reforms carry social externalities of opposing sign that fiscal accounting omits. |
| Keywords: | retirement, social capital, fuzzy regression discontinuity, bridging and bonding social capital |
| JEL: | J26 Z13 I31 D91 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18822 |
| By: | Eickmeier, Sandra; Petersen, Luba |
| Abstract: | Central banks, including the European Central Bank (ECB), are increasingly involved in climate-related initiatives. This study uses a June 2023 survey of German households to gauge public support for the ECB’s climate engagement. Our findings reveal that 69% of households report increased trust in the ECB due to its climate actions, with most noting a mild boost in trust. These households primarily value the ECB’s broader scope and concern. A minority, comprising 17% and 20% respectively of all households, express concerns about potential compromises to price stability or independence. In contrast, a larger group (23% of all households) believes that the ECB’s climate efforts help the institution better achieve its core objectives. Additionally, our analysis of an information intervention reveals that the ECB’s climate actions have minimal effect on overall household inflation expectations. Finally, an internal survey of central bankers reveals that while they accurately gauge the ECB’s climate activities’ effect on households’ trust, they tend to overestimate their impact on inflation expectations. In sum, our results indicate public endorsement of the ECB’s climate-related endeavors. |
| JEL: | E7 E59 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19549 |
| By: | Ehrmann, Michael |
| Abstract: | Trust in the central bank is an essential ingredient for a successful conduct of monetary policy. However, for many central banks trust has recently declined, for instance in the wake of the post-pandemic inflation surge, due to large errors in central banks’ inflation forecasts, or given problems when exiting from forward guidance. The rapid, substantial and persistent erosion of trust makes it clear that trust needs to be earned continuously. This paper reviews why trust is important, what determines it and how central banks can enhance it. It also argues that it is important for central banks to improve the measurement and monitoring of trust. It ends by highlighting some future challenges for maintaining trust. |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19781 |
| By: | Aikman, David; Monti, Francesca; Zhang, Shunshun |
| Abstract: | We develop a novel measure of trust in the Federal Reserve using Generative Artificial Intelligence to analyse millions of tweets about the Fed, its leadership and its policy framework and decisions. Our measure reacts in an intuitive way to various macro-financial variables and indicators of U.S. monetary policy. To study the effects of trust shocks, we use a narrative identification approach based on ethical scandals embroiling some FOMC members, and we study the effects of these shocks using a daily VAR. We find that trust shocks have highly persistent effects on macroeconomic variables despite having short-lived effects on our trust measure: they weaken business conditions, the stock market and news sentiment, while increasing the VIX index. Inflation expectations also increase following a trust shock, worsening the inflation-output trade-off. |
| Keywords: | Trust; Narrative identification; Central banks |
| JEL: | D83 D84 E52 E58 |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19811 |
| By: | Arnaud Natal (IFP - Institut Français de Pondichéry - MEAE - Ministère de l'Europe et des Affaires étrangères - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UB - Université de Bordeaux, BSE - Bordeaux sciences économiques - UB - Université de Bordeaux - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Damien Girollet (UB - Université de Bordeaux, BSE - Bordeaux sciences économiques - UB - Université de Bordeaux - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | Using original data from rural South India, we examine how personality traits intersect with caste and gender to shape interpersonal network characteristics in a Global South context. We analyse the relationship between four personality traits (emotional stability, plasticity, conscientiousness, and locus of control) and three network outcomes (strength of ties, caste, and gender heterophily) using econometric tools. We document four main findings. Firstly, personality traits significantly shape tie strength, reflecting differences in how individuals balance relational dependence and social autonomy. Secondly, personality is associated with selective social boundary crossing, which may facilitate interaction across caste lines, while remaining constrained by gender norms. Thirdly, personality traits shape network characteristics to a similar extent across networks, suggesting that ties remain governed by stable patterns of social interaction. Fourthly, personality operates as a context-dependent resource, shaping networks primarily among individuals who are structurally able to act, particularly men and middle castes. |
| Keywords: | Social network, Caste, Gender, Locus of control, Big Five |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05547405 |