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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
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Issue of 2026–11–02
seven papers chosen by Fabio Sabatini, Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Anujit Chakraborty; Arkadev Ghosh; Matt Lowe; Gareth Nellis |
| Abstract: | We hypothesize that broad contact, involving brief interactions with multiple outgroup members, and deep contact, meaning longer interactions with a single outgroup member, play distinct roles in shaping intergroup relations. We set up a factory in India and recruited Hindu and Muslim men to work in pairs on joint production tasks. We randomly assigned participants to work either with the same ingroup or outgroup partner daily (deep contact), a different outgroup partner each day (broad contact), or to a control group. Deep contact strengthens social and economic ties with the outgroup partner. But only broad contact reduces the majority group's misperceptions about outgroup strangers. Using within-treatment variation in partners’ pre-treatment productivity, we show that participants in both arms learn about their partners, but broad participants also generalize these belief updates to strangers. These findings align with a model in which independent sampling promotes learning about outgroups more than prolonged interaction with a single individual does. Nevertheless, neither type of contact changes behavior toward the wider outgroup. |
| JEL: | C93 D83 D9 Z13 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35884 |
| By: | Joseph Kopecky (Department of Economics, Trinity College Dublin) |
| Abstract: | Why do deep recessions scar labor markets long after their shocks fade? Networks of employed contacts, built by employment, eroded by unemployment, are a depreciable capital stock that no one owns. I build this stock into a heterogeneous‐agent model of the U.S. labor market, disciplined by three decades of CPS data on cyclical job‐search behavior. In a calibrated China‐shock experiment, the network accounts for a quarter to a third of the employment scar, concentrated on low‐wealth workers. Its destruction is an unpriced externality; a state‐contingent hiring credit corrects it cheaply in this economy and dominates equal‐cost unemployment insurance. |
| Keywords: | social networks, referral hiring, network capital, scarring, hysteresis |
| JEL: | E24 E32 J64 J68 D62 D85 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tcd:tcduee:tep2626 |
| By: | Estelle Campenet |
| Abstract: | The interactions between the accumulation of public capital, the formation and environmental degradation are largely unexplored in the literature on growth. Each of these dimensions has recieved considerable attention in isolation, but no existing model treats them a state variables evolving jointly within a unified intertemporal framework. This paper fills this gap by developing a theoretical model, in which public capital, social capital and a stock of pollution accumulate simultaneously beside private capital. Social capital formation is endogenised via a meeting opportunity parameter linked to the availability of public infrastructure, whilst pollution appears as a by-product of productive activity, without entering into household utility. Firstly, the model admits a unique internal steady state. Secondly, a Hopf bifurcation occurs near this state, allowing the rise of a stable limit cycle and ensuring that the economy converges towards a regime of persistent endogenous oscillations. These results are established analytically and confirmed by numerical simulations. |
| Keywords: | Social Capital, Public Capital, Hopf Bifurcation, Endogenous Depreciation |
| JEL: | O41 Q58 C62 H41 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2026-35 |
| By: | Richard Murphy; Shqiponja Telhaj |
| Abstract: | This paper studies whether governments can change social norms that constrain women’s education and work, and through which mechanism. Albania’s 1967 religion ban, which created the world’s first atheist state, provides an extreme natural experiment: religious practice was outlawed nationwide, but a 1948 classification of historic monuments determined which religious buildings remained standing. We find larger increases in female employment and schooling where no monument survived. The public visibility of the old religious order appears to be the mechanism: effects are largest where no monument remained, smaller with rural-only monuments, and smallest with urban monuments; they also decline as monument count rises, regardless of denomination. We establish how social norms can outlive formal authority. |
| JEL: | J16 N34 Z12 Z13 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35933 |
| By: | Amaral, Sofia (World Bank); Borker, Girija (World Bank); Prakash, Nishith (Northeastern University); Sviatschi, Maria (Princeton University) |
| Abstract: | Frontline state agents wield broad discretion over citizens’ access to public services, yet whether the attitudes shaping it can be changed among incumbent bureaucrats is largely unknown. Partnering with the Bihar Police, we run a cluster randomized trial across 417 stations and ~2, 500 senior officers evaluating a three-day expressive arts intervention grounded in Theatre of the Oppressed to improve police responses to gender-based violence (GBV). Seven months after baseline, treated officers exhibit more favorable GBV attitudes, greater empathy, and stronger legal knowledge. These translate into behavior: in victim audits one year later, treated stations are 15 percentage points less likely to blame victims, dismiss fewer complaints, and provide more referrals, while records show a 41% drop in registration delays and, over a longer horizon, increased citizen GBV reporting. Exploiting transfers, we find suggestive evidence that effects persist as officers relocate and diffuse to untreated colleagues. Junior female officers under treated seniors report lower harassment and anxiety. Attitudes shaping bureaucratic discretion are malleable, and changing how state agents exercise authority can improve service delivery and workplaces. |
| Keywords: | police, gender-based violence, state capacity, bureaucratic discretion, gender attitudes, workplace spillovers |
| JEL: | J16 K42 J45 D73 D91 C93 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp19005 |
| By: | Belete, Asimamaw (Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University); Zaharieva, Anna (Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University) |
| Abstract: | We study a relationship between the job search strategies of workers and occupational mismatch, and investigate the role of worker mobility. Using data from the German Socio-economic Panel, we show that workers finding jobs through social contacts experience shorter moving distances compared to workers finding jobs formally. However, shorter moving distances are associated with higher occupational mismatch. Building on this geography-based mechanism, we develop a theoretical search and matching model where individuals are uniformly distributed on a unit distance between two cities and seek a job in either city by applying formally or using help of their network contacts. Jobs have heterogeneous match qualities and there is a moving cost. Beyond explaining the evidence, the model predicts that network hiring leads to a stronger concentration of workers in the cities and contributes to the regional employment segregation. Moreover, it raises inequality by widening the gap in life-time incomes across locations. |
| Keywords: | moving distance, job search, referrals, social networks, match quality |
| Date: | 2026–10–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bie:wpaper:771 |
| By: | Vincent Boucher; Iris Laugier |
| Abstract: | Homophily in networks can arise either from meeting opportunities or from preferences. We use the number of joint classes students have as a measure of exposure intensity to identify the relative contributions of meeting-based and preference-based racial homophily in teenagers’ friendships in US secondary schools. We present robust evidence that friendship increases with exposure, but even more for same-race students. We develop and estimate an intuitive structural model of friendship formation to reproduce and decompose this stylized fact. We find that preference-based homophily explains the majority of overall racial homophily, but that meeting- based one explains more than a third of it. We argue that this still leaves room for policies targeting meetings in order to improve racial integration. We simulate such policies and discuss their effectiveness in increasing meetings, friendships, and reducing segregation at the school level. L’homophilie dans les réseaux peut résulter soit des occasions de rencontre, soit des préférences individuelles. Nous utilisons le nombre de cours suivis en commun par les élèves comme mesure de l’intensité de leur exposition mutuelle afin de déterminer les contributions relatives de l’homophilie raciale fondée sur les rencontres et de celle fondée sur les préférences dans les relations d’amitié entre adolescents des écoles secondaires américaines. Nous présentons des résultats robustes montrant que la probabilité de nouer une amitié augmente avec l’exposition, mais que cette augmentation est encore plus marquée entre élèves appartenant au même groupe racial. Nous développons et estimons un modèle structurel intuitif de formation des amitiés afin de reproduire et de décomposer ce fait stylisé. Nous constatons que l’homophilie fondée sur les préférences explique la majeure partie de l’homophilie raciale globale, tandis que celle fondée sur les rencontres en explique plus du tiers. Nous soutenons que ce constat laisse néanmoins une marge de manœuvre pour des politiques visant à favoriser les occasions de rencontre afin d’améliorer l’intégration raciale. Nous simulons de telles politiques et examinons leur efficacité pour accroître les occasions de rencontre et les relations d’amitié, ainsi que pour réduire la ségrégation à l’échelle des établissements scolaires. |
| Keywords: | Racial homophily, friendship networks, social interactions, racial integration, school segregation, friendship formation, Homophilie raciale, réseaux d’amitié, interactions sociales, intégration raciale, ségrégation scolaire, formation des amitiés |
| Date: | 2026–10–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:cirwor:2026s-21 |