|
on Social Norms and Social Capital |
|
Issue of 2026–02–09
seven papers chosen by Fabio Sabatini, Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Phoebe Koundouris (School of Economics, Department of IEES and Director, ReSEES, Athens University of Economics and Business; Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge; Peterhouse, University of Cambridge; Director, Sustainable Development Unit, ATHENA Information Technologies Research Center; Chair, Alliance of Excellence for Research Innovation on Aephoria (AE4RIA)); Anastasia Litina (Department of Economics, University of Macedonia, Visiting Researcher at the University of Luxembourg); Ioannis Patios (Department of Economics, University of Macedonia) |
| Abstract: | An unexplored impact of natural disasters is the scarcity they create and the resulting reallocation of resources. This paper examines this effect by analyzing how disaster-driven scarcity reshapes fairness considerations. Using data from the International Disaster Database and the European Social Survey, we show that disaster exposure increases perceptions of solidarity-driven fairness, including social support, rewards for effort, and equal access to services, while reducing perceptions of scarcity-driven fairness such as wage equality, access to education or the functioning of the political system. As disasters are a cross-border phenomenon, we further study spillovers from neighboring countries and find that they can strengthen solidarity-based fairness while simultaneously heightening skepticism toward institutional and societal fairness. Finally, we explore mechanisms, i.e., ιnstitutional trust, FDI, EU funds, that condition these relationships and shape how individuals interpret fairness norms after a disaster. |
| Keywords: | Fairness; NaturalDisasters; Justice; Equality; ClimateChange. |
| JEL: | Q54 D63 D64 H84 Z13 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mcd:mcddps:2026_01 |
| By: | Franz Dietrich (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris School of Economics, CNRS); Kai Spiekermann (London School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Most recent theorists take social norms to arise from certain attitudes, such as expectations on others, perhaps along with conforming practices. Challenging this view, we argue that social norms are instead grounded in a social norming process: an (often non-verbal) social communication process that institutes or ‘makes’ the norm. We present different versions of a process-based account of social norms and social normativity. The process-based view brings social norms closer to legal norms, by taking social norms to arise through ‘expressive acts’, just as some laws and contracts arise through acts of voting or signing, not through mere attitudes |
| Keywords: | social norms; normativity |
| JEL: | D70 D71 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:cesdoc:24009r |
| By: | Patricia Cortés; Jisoo Hwang; Jessica Pan; Uta Schönberg |
| Abstract: | Despite substantial convergence in men’s and women’s economic roles, gender gaps in labor market outcomes persist across countries. This article provides a unified framework for understanding how gender norms shape economic behavior, distinguishing between internalized norms—preferences and beliefs tied to gender identity—and external norms arising from peer pressure and social coordination. We first document cross-country and within-country variation in gender attitudes, alongside gradual but uneven shifts toward more egalitarian views. We then review empirical evidence on the origins, persistence, and transmission of gender norms, and their effects on human capital accumulation, labor supply, wages, and policy take-up. The review highlights both the durability of gender norms and the mechanisms through which policies, institutions, and media can induce norm change, with implications for the design of effective interventions. |
| JEL: | J16 J22 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34716 |
| By: | Skerdilajda Zanaj (DEM, Université du Luxembourg); Anastasia Litina (University of Macedonia); Emma Thill (DEM, Université du Luxembourg) |
| Abstract: | "Culture shapes economic and social life, yet some traits erode quickly, while others persist across generations. Migrant experiences towards Europe or the United States illustrate this puzzle. In addition, some traits, such as fertility norms, tend to converge relatively quickly, whereas others, such as religiosity, exhibit substantially greater persistence. We develop a dynamic model of cultural transmission that endogenizes both cross-cultural group interaction and parental influence on cultural openness defined as a parentally transmitted willingness to adopt a new cultural trait when beneficial. Parents first shape cultural transmission by choosing their children’s openness to alternative traits. As young adults, individuals then decide how much to interact with other groups and, conditional on interaction, whether to switch traits. This endogenizes peer exposure and makes cultural change a deliberate choice. Within a generation, a higher group-level propensity to switch reduces group size, while tighter norms can expand or shrink a group depending on the relative utility of its trait. Across generations, parental investments in openness generate three long-run equilibria: convergence to a single trait, coexistence with interaction, or segregation without interaction. By jointly modeling parental transmission and peer-driven switching, we show that cultural persistence or change reflects purposeful micro-level decisions." |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:luc:wpaper:25-20 |
| By: | Boltz, Marie; Bustelo, Monserrat; Díaz, Ana M.; Suaya, Agustina |
| Abstract: | This paper studies whether gender gaps in womens labor-market outcomes are sustained by systematic misperceptions about social and spousal support for maternal employment. Using a representative sample of 1, 732 cohabiting couples with young children in Bogotá, we show that while support for working mothers is nearly universal, both women and men substantially underestimate others supportparticularly fathersand frequently misperceive their partners views. We then implement a randomized information intervention that provides personalized feedback on prevailing local attitudes. The intervention reduces these misperceptions without altering individuals own attitudes. Treated men become 9 percentage points more likely to prioritize their wife for a scarce career-building opportunity, while womens choices change little. In the short run, treated women report more intensive job search and treated men place greater weight on workfamily balance. Effects are concentrated among women already active in the labor market, highlighting both the potential and the limits of norm-correcting information. |
| Keywords: | Gender norms;Female Employment;Pluralistic ignorance;RCT. |
| JEL: | C93 D91 J21 J16 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:14486 |
| By: | Anyfantaki, Sofia; Martynova, Natalya; Avramidis, Panagiotis |
| Abstract: | We study how deposit rate shocks transmit across banking markets through digital social ties. Depositors’ inattention implies that households react to outside rate changes only when social networks make these changes salient, inducing connected banks to raise their own rates. Using merger-driven shocks to local deposit rates and county-level social connectedness, we show that small banks increase rates in response to shocks occurring in socially linked but geographically distant counties. Spillovers are economically meaningful, persistent, and stronger in competitive markets and in counties with more financially sophisticated households. Digital social ties therefore activate depositor search and integrate deposit markets across space. JEL Classification: G20, G21, G23, G29 |
| Keywords: | deposit pricing, information transmission, limited attention, social connections, uniform pricing |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20263178 |
| By: | Simon Gaechter (University of Nottingham); Dominik Suri (University of Bonn); Sebastian Kube (University of Bonn) |
| Abstract: | AI-driven systems are rapidly moving from decision support to directing human behavior through rules, recommendations, and compliance requests. This shift expands everyday human–AI interaction and raises the possibility that AI may function as an authority figure. However, the behavioral consequences of AI as an authority figure remain poorly understood. We investigate whether individuals differ in their willingness to comply with arbitrary rules depending on whether these rules are attributed to an AI agent (ChatGPT) or to a fellow human. In a between-subject design, 977 US Prolific users completed the coins task: they could earn a monetary payoff by stopping the disappearance of coins at any time, but a rule instructed them to wait for a signal before doing so. There are no conventional reasons to follow this rule: complying is costly and nobody is harmed by non-compliance. Despite this, we find high rule-following rates: 64.3% followed the rule set by ChatGPT and 63.9% complied with the human-set rule. Descriptive and normative beliefs about rule following, aswell as compliance conditional on these beliefs, are also largely unaffected by the rule’s origin. However, subjective social closeness to the rule setter significantly predicts how participants condition their behavior on social expectations: when participants perceive the rule setter as subjectively closer, conditional compliance is higher and associated beliefs are stronger, irrespective of whether the rule setter is human or AI. |
| Keywords: | artificial intelligence; AI-human interaction; ChatGPT; rule-following; coins task; CRISP framework; social expectations; conditional rule conformity; social closeness; IOS11; online experiments |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notcdx:2026-02 |