NEP: New Economics Papers - Social Norms and Social Capital - 08-12-2014

Date:

2014

By:

Tirivayi J.N. (UNU-MERIT)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2014064&r=soc [2]

I use data from the South African Social Giving Survey to investigate the role of social capital and motivations for giving to formal charities and beggars. Results suggest that both impure altruism and inequality aversion positively influence giving to formal charities but they have no influence on giving to beggars. The role of social capital is varied. Members of informal insurance groups are more likely to give to both charities and beggars, while members of formal community groups are more likely to give to charities only. Members of interest groups are actually less likely to donate to charities and prefer giving to beggars.

Keywords:

Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models: Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile Regressions; Social Interaction Models; Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models: Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions; Altruism; Philanthropy; Public Goods;

JEL:

H41 C31 C35 D64

Date:

2014-02

By:

Cuong Le Van (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne, EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics - Ecole d'Économie de Paris, VCREME - VanXuan Center of Research in Economics, Management and Environment - VanXuan Center of Research in Economics, Management and Environment)
Anh Ngoc Nguyen (DEPOCEN - Development and Policies Research Center)
Ngoc-Minh Nguyen (DEPOCEN - Development and Policies Research Center)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01021376&r=soc [3]

We study the impact of social capital in both simple theoretical and empirical model with the main assumption is the price of physical capital is a decreasing function of social capital. In our theoretical model, there exists a critical value such that firm will not invest in social capital if its saving is lower than the critical value and otherwise. Moreover, the output depends positively and non-linearly on the social capital. Our empirical model that captures the impact of physical capital, human capital, and social capital using the database from Survey of Small and Medium Scale Manufacturing Enterprises (SMEs) in Vietnam 2011, confirms the conclusions of the theoretical model.

Keywords:

Social capital; optimal growth

Date:

2013-04-01

By:

Gaël Giraud (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne, EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics - Ecole d'Économie de Paris)
Cécile Renouard (ESSEC Business School - ESSEC Business School)
Hélène L'Huillier (ESSEC Business School - ESSEC Business School)
Raphaële De La Martinière (Chercheur Indépendant - Aucune)
Camille Sutter (Ensea ParisTech - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique - ParisTech)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00815586&r=soc [4]

This paper explores some of the dimensions related to poverty and exclusion, by defining a Relational Capability Index (RCI) which focuses on the quality of relationships among people and on their level of relational empowerment. This index is rooted in a relational anthropology; it insists on the quality of the social fabric and of interpersonal relations as a key aspect of human development. As a multidimensional index, the RCI includes integration into networks, private relations and civic commitments. We provide an axiomatization of a family of multidimensional indexes. This axiomatic viewpoint fills the gap between theories of justice and poverty measurements. By means of illustration, we apply three different versions of the RCI, which are elements of this family, to the measurement of the impact of oil companies on local communities in the Niger Delta (Nigeria) and to national surveys (Afrobarometer).

Date:

2014-11

By:

Guglielmo Barone (Bank of Italy, Regional Economic Research Division, Bologna Branch, The Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis, Italy)
Sauro Mocetti (Bank of Italy, Regional Economic Research Division, Bologna Branch)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rim:rimwps:25_14&r=soc [5]

The relationship between inequality and trust has attracted the interest of many scholars who have found a negative relationship between the two variables. However, the causal link from inequality to trust is far from being identified and the existing empirical evidence admittedly remains weak, as the omitted variable bias, reverse causation and/or measurement error might be at work. In this paper, we reconsider the country-level evidence to address this issue. First, we exploit the panel dimension of the data, thus controlling for any country unobservable time-invariant variables. Second, we provide instrumental variable estimates using the predicted exposure to technological change as an exogenous driver of inequality. According to our findings, income inequality significantly and negatively affects generalised trust. However, this result only holds for developed countries. We also explore new insights on the effects of different dimensions of inequality, exploiting measures of both static inequality – such as the Gini index and top income shares – and dynamic inequality – proxied by intergenerational income mobility.

Date:

2014-10

By:

Erik Kimbrough (Simon Fraser University)
Alexander Vostroknutov (Maastricht University)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sfu:sfudps:dp14-06&r=soc [6]

We explore the idea that prosocial behavior in experimental games is driven by social norms imported into the laboratory. Under this view, differences in behavior across subjects is driven by heterogeneity in sensitivity to social norms. We introduce an incentivized method of eliciting individual norm-sensitivity, and we show how it relates to play in public goods, trust, dictator and ultimatum games. We show how our observations can be rationalized in a stylized model of norm-dependent preferences under reasonable assumptions about the nature of social norms. Then we directly elicit norms in these games to test the robustness of our interpretation.

Keywords:

experimental economics, norms, social preferences, conditional cooperation, reciprocity

JEL:

C91 C92 D03

Date:

2014

By:

Reif, Christiane
Rübbelke, Dirk
Löschel, Andreas

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:14075&r=soc [7]

Social norms can help to foster cooperation and to overcome the free-rider problem in private provision of public goods. This paper focuses on the enforcement of social norms by a self-introduced punishment and reward scheme. We analyse if subjects achieve to implement a norm-enforcement mechanism at their own expense by applying the theory of non-governmental norm-enforcement by Buchholz et al. (2014) in a laboratory experiment. Based on their theory without central authority and endogenously determined enforcement mechanism, we implement a two-stage public good game: At the first stage subjects determine the strength of penalty/reward on their own and in the second stage they decide on their contributions to the public good. We find that the mechanism by Buchholz et al. (2014) leads to a higher public good contribution than without the use of any mechanism. Only in a few cases groups end up with a zero enforcement mechanism. This result indicates that subjects are apparently willing to contribute funds for implementing an enforcement mechanism. Moreover, higher enforcement parameters lead to higher public good contributions in the second stage, although too high enforcement parameters lead to unreachable theoretical optima.

Keywords:

laboratory experiment,public good,matching mechanism,social norms,norm enforcement

JEL:

H41 C92

Date:

2014-08

By:

Muehlheusser, Gerd (University of Hamburg)
Roider, Andreas (University of Regensburg)
Wallmeier, Niklas (University of Hamburg)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8443&r=soc [8]

Extending the die rolling experiment of Fischbacher and Föllmi-Heusi (2013), we compare gender effects with respect to unethical behavior by individuals and by two-person groups. In contrast to individual decisions, gender matters strongly under group decisions. We find more lying in male groups and mixed groups than in female groups.

Keywords:

unethical behavior, lying, group decisions, gender effects, experiment

JEL:

C91 C92 J16

Date:

2014-11

By:

Michal Ksawery Popiel (Queen's University)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qed:wpaper:1332&r=soc [9]

Social networks are an important component in understanding the decision to consume addictive substances. They capture the role of limited access, peer influence, and social acceptance and tolerance. However, despite the empirical evidence of their role, they have been absent from theoretical models. This paper proposes a mechanism through which agents can influence each other in their decision to consume an addictive good. An agent's decision is sensitive to her state of addiction as well as to the composition of her neighbourhood. The model is consistent with the empirical evidence that peer influence can work in both ways: influencing an individual to use and helping them to quit. The structure of the network has important implications on the outcome of agents' decisions as well as the effectiveness of policies aimed at limiting use of addictive substances through deterrence. I provide a network-based explanation of why usage rates can vary across otherwise similar agents and show how in some situations encouraging network ties can lead to lower use while in others it can have the opposite effect. Furthermore, I explore the effect of networks on diffusion of addiction and, using simulations, find that addiction spreads faster in an environment where there are few strong links than in one with many weak links.

Keywords:

addiction, dual-self, networks, random utility

JEL:

C70 D01 I18

Date:

2014

By:

de Melo, Gioia
Piaggio, Matías

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170571&r=soc [10]

We provide experimental evidence on the effects of non-monetary punishment by peers among communities of Uruguayan fishers exploiting a common pool resource (CPR). We combined this treatment with an in-group (groups from a single community) / mixed group (groups composed of fishers from different communities) treatment. Our aim is to compare the effects of non-monetary sanctions in a context in which individuals exploiting a CPR belong to different communities relative to the case in which only individuals from the same community are allowed to exploit the resource. We find that mixed groups—unlike in-groups—reduce their exploitation of the resource in response to the threat of punishment. We do not find any differences in behavior between in-groups and mixed groups when the possibility of being punished is not available. The effectiveness of non-monetary punishment is reduced because cooperation was not perceived as the unique social norm. In such cases there is substantial antisocial punishment, which leads to increased extraction of the CPR by those who are unfairly punished. These findings indicate that effective peer punishment requires coordination to prevent antisocial targeting and to clarify the social signal conveyed by punishment.

Keywords:

non-monetary punishment, in-group bias, framed field experimen, social preferences, commmon pool resource, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Environmental Economics and Policy, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, D03, O12, C93

Date:

2014-11

By:

Attila Ambrus
Arun G. Chandrasekhar
Matt Elliott

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20669&r=soc [11]

This paper studies costly network formation in the context of risk sharing. Neighboring agents negotiate agreements as in Stole and Zwiebel (1996), which results in the social surplus being allocated according to the Myerson value. We uncover two types of inefficiency: overinvestment in social relationships within group (e.g., caste, ethnicity), but underinvestment across group. We find a novel tradeoff between efficiency and equality. Both within and across groups, inefficiencies are minimized by increasing social inequality, which results in financial inequality and increasing the centrality of the most central agents. Evidence from 75 Indian village networks is congruent with our model.

JEL:

C78 D31 D61 D86 L14 Z13

Date:

2014

By:

Chen, Roy
Chen, Yan
Liu, Yang
Mei, Qiaozhu

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wzbmbh:spii2014209&r=soc [12]

We investigate the effects of team competition on pro-social lending activity on Kiva.org, the first microlending website to match lenders with entrepreneurs in developing countries. Using naturally occurring field data, we find that lenders who join teams contribute 1.2 more loans ($30-$42) per month than those who do not. To further explore factors that differentiate successful teams from dormant ones, we run a large-scale randomized field experiment (n = 22, 233) by posting forum messages. Compared to the control, we find that lenders make significantly more loans when exposed to a goal-setting and coordination message, whereas goal-setting alone significantly increases lending activities of previously inactive teams. Our findings suggest that goal-setting and coordination are effective mechanisms to increase pro-social behavior in teams.

Keywords:

social identity,pro-social lending,microfinance,field experiment

JEL:

C1 C93 D64 H41

Date:

2014-10

By:

Scoppa, Vincenzo (University of Calabria)
Stranges, Manuela (University of Calabria)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8522&r=soc [13]

We investigate the role of culture in explaining economic outcomes at individual level analyzing how cultural values from the home country affect the decision to work of immigrants in Italy, using the National Survey of Households with Immigrants. Following the “epidemiological approach”, we relate the probability of being employed in Italy for immigrant women with the female labor force participation (LFP) in their country of origin, taken as a proxy of cultural heritage and gender role model. Controlling for a number of individual and household characteristics, we show that participation in the labor market is affected both by the culture of females' and by their husband's origin countries. We also show that the relationship between own decisions in the host country and home country LFP cannot be attributed to human capital quality or discrimination and it turns out to be stronger for immigrants that maintained more intense ties with their origin countries. Finally, we investigate to what extent cultural influence is driven by religious beliefs: we find that religion is a key determinant of differences in female labor decisions, but, besides religion, other cultural values exert additional influence.

Keywords:

culture, immigration, labor force participation, epidemiological approach, gender, Italy

JEL:

Z10 Z13 J10 J15 J16 J20

Date:

2014

By:

Wauters, Ellen
Lievens, Eva
Valcke, Peggy

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:itse14:101390&r=soc [14]