In this issue we feature 13 current papers on the theme of social capital:

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In this issue we have:

1. "Learned Generosity? A Field Experiment with Parents and their Children" - Avner Ben-Ner; John A. List; Louis Putterman; Anya Samek
2. Understanding Conformity: An Experimental Investigation - B. Douglas Bernheim; Christine L. Exley
3. The Political Legacy of Entertainment TV - Ruben Durante; Paolo Pinotti; Andrea Tesei
4. Urban Networks: Connecting Markets, People, and Ideas - Edward L. Glaeser; Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto; Yimei Zou
5. Social network and private provision of public goods - Bulat Sanditov; Saurabh Arora
6. Mobile Messaging for Offline Social Interactions: a Large Field Experiment - Tianshu Sun; Guodong (Gordon) Gao; Ginger Zhe Jin
7. Tax Morale and Trust in Public Institutions - Wilfried Anicet Kouamé
8. Entry or Exit? The Effect of Voluntary Participation on Cooperation - Daniele Nosenzo; Fabio Tufano
9. Lab Measures of Other-Regarding Preferences Can Predict Some Related on-the-Job Behavior: Evidence from a Large Scale Field Experiment - Stephen V. Burks; Daniele Nosenzo; Jon Anderson; Matthew Bombyk; Derek Ganzhorn; Lorenz Goette; Aldo Rustichini
10. The Evolution of Culture and Institutions: Evidence from the Kuba Kingdom - Sara Lowes; Nathan Nunn; James A. Robinson; Jonathan Weigel
11. Business Networks and Crisis Performance: Professional, Political, and Family Ties - Richard W. Carney; Travers Barclay Child
12. Immigrants and Gender Roles: Assimilation vs. Culture Francine D. Blau
13. Who cares about your Facebook friends? Credit scoring for microfinance -  DE CNUDDE, Sofie; MOEYERSOMS, Julie; STANKOVA, Marija; TOBBACK, Ellen; JAVALY, Vinayak; MARTENS, David

 

 

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 1. "Learned Generosity? A Field Experiment with Parents and their Children"

 

    Avner Ben-Ner

 

    John A. List

 

    Louis Putterman

 

    Anya Samek

 

 An active area of research within the social sciences concerns the underlying  motivation for sharing scarce resources and engaging in other pro-social  actions. We develop a theoretical framework that sheds light on the  developmental origins of social preferences by providing mechanisms through  which parents transmit preferences for generosity to their children. Then, we  conduct a field experiment with nearly 150 3-5 year old children and their  parents, measuring (1) whether child and parent generosity is correlated, (2)  whether children are influenced by their parents when making sharing  decisions and (3) whether parents model generosity to children. We observe no  correlation of independently measured parent and child sharing decisions at  this young age. Yet, we find that apart from those choosing an equal  allocation of resources between themselves and another child, children adjust  their behaviors to narrow the gap with their parent’s or other adult’s  choice. We find that fathers, and parents of initially generous children,  increase their sharing when informed that their child will be shown their  choice.

 

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bro:econwp:2015-12&r=soc

 

 

 

 2. Understanding Conformity: An Experimental Investigation

 

    B. Douglas Bernheim (Stanford University)

 

    Christine L. Exley (Harvard Business School, Negotiation, Organizations &

 

     Markets Unit)

 

 Some theories of conformity hold that social equilibrium either standardizes  inferences or promotes a shared understanding of conventions and norms among  individuals with fixed heterogeneous preferences (belief mechanisms). Others  depict tastes as fluid and hence subject to social influences (preference  mechanisms). Belief mechanisms dominate discussions of conformity within  economics, but preference mechanisms receive significant attention in other  social sciences. This paper seeks to determine whether conformity is  attributable to belief mechanisms or preference mechanisms by exploiting  their distinctive implications for the process of convergence. Laboratory  experiments suggest that economists have focused too narrowly on explanations  for conformity involving belief mechanisms.

 

    Keywords: conformity, norms, image motivation, prosocial behavior,

 

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbs:wpaper:16-070&r=soc

 

 

 

 3. The Political Legacy of Entertainment TV

 

    Ruben Durante (Sciences Po and CEPR)

 

    Paolo Pinotti (Bocconi University and DONDENA Center)

 

    Andrea Tesei (Queen Mary University of London and CEP (LSE))  We investigate the political impact of entertainment television in Italy over  the past thirty years by exploiting the staggered introduction of Silvio  Berlusconi's commercial TV network, Mediaset, in the early 1980s. We find  that individuals in municipalities that had access to Mediaset prior to 1985

 

 - when the network only featured light entertainment programs - were  significantly more likely to vote for Berlusconi's party in 1994, when he  first ran for office. This effect persists for almost two decades and five  elections, and is especially pronounced for heavy TV viewers, namely the very  young and the old. We relate the extreme persistence of the effect to the  relative incidence of these age groups in the voting population, and explore  different mechanisms through which early exposure to entertainment content  may have influenced their political attitudes.

 

    Keywords: Television, Entertainment, Voting, Political participation, Italy

 

    JEL: L82 D72 Z13

 

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qmw:qmwecw:wp762&r=soc

 

 

 

 4. Urban Networks: Connecting Markets, People, and Ideas

 

    Edward L. Glaeser

 

    Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto

 

    Yimei Zou

 

 Should China build mega-cities or a network of linked middle-sized  metropolises? Can Europe’s mid-sized cities compete with global agglomeration  by forging stronger inter-urban links? This paper examines these questions  within a model of recombinant growth and endogenous local amenities. Three  primary factors determine the trade-off between networks and big cities:

 

 local returns to scale in innovation, the elasticity of housing supply, and  the importance of local amenities. Even if there are global increasing  returns, the returns to local scale in innovation may be decreasing, and that  makes networks more appealing than mega-cities. Inelastic housing supply  makes it harder to supply more space in dense confines, which perhaps  explains why networks are more popular in regulated Europe than in the  American Sunbelt. Larger cities can dominate networks because of amenities,  as long as the benefits of scale overwhelm the downsides of density. In our  framework, the skilled are more likely to prefer mega-cities than the less  skilled, and the long-run benefits of either mega-cities or networks may be  quite different from the short-run benefits.

 

    JEL: F15 O18 R10 R58

 

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21794&r=soc

 

 

 

 5. Social network and private provision of public goods

 

    Bulat Sanditov (TELECOM Ecole de Management, Institut Mines-T´el´ecom,

 

     France)

 

    Saurabh Arora (Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, UK)  Using a simple model with interdependent utilities, we study how social  networks influence individual voluntary contributions to the provision of a  public good. Departing from the stan- dard model of public good provision, we  assume that an agent’s utility has two terms: (a) ‘ego’-utility derived from  the agent’s consumption of public and private goods, and (b) a so- cial  utility which is the sum of utility spillovers from other agents with whom  the agent has social relationships. We establish conditions for the existence  of a unique interior Nash equi- librium and describe the equilibrium in terms  of network characteristics. We show that social network always has a positive  effect on the provision of the public good. We also find that, in networks  with “small world”-like modular structures, ‘bridging’ ties connecting  distant parts of social network play an important role inducing the agent’s  contribution to public good. Assumptions and results of the model are  discussed in relation to the role of social capital in community-level  development projects and to the effect of innovation networks on firms’ R&D  investments.

 

    Keywords: public goods, interrelated utilities, social capital, R&D

 

     networks

 

    JEL: H41 D85 O31

 

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sru:ssewps:2015-35&r=soc

 

 

 

 6. Mobile Messaging for Offline Social Interactions: a Large Field Experiment

 

    Tianshu Sun

 

    Guodong (Gordon) Gao

 

    Ginger Zhe Jin

 

 While much research has examined the role of technology in moderating online  user connections, how IT motivates offline interactions among users is much  less understood. Using a randomized field experiment involving 80,000  participants, we study how mobile messaging can leverage recipients’ social  ties to encourage blood donation. There are three main findings: first, both  behavior intervention (in the form of reminder message) and economic reward  (in the form of individual or group reward) increase donations, but only the  messages with group reward are effective in motivating more donors to donate  with their friend(s); second, group reward tends to attract different types  of donors, especially those who are traditionally less active in online  social setting; and third, across all treatments, message recipients donate a  greater amount of blood if their friends are present. Structural estimation  further suggests that rewarding group donors is four times more  cost-effective than rewarding individual donors. Based on the structural  estimates, we perform policy simulations on the optimal design of mobile  messaging. The method of combining structural model and randomized field  experiment opens new frontiers for research on leveraging IT to mobilize a  user’s social network for social good.

 

    JEL: D8 I18

 

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21704&r=soc

 

 

 

 7. Tax Morale and Trust in Public Institutions

 

    Wilfried Anicet Kouamé (GREDI, Universite de Sherbrooke)   One significant puzzle in economics is to explain why people pay their  taxes and why there are so many differences in tax compliance across  countries. Tax morale literature try to tackle this puzzle with a sparse  evidence from the relationship between taxpayers and public authorities  (vertical relationship). As a novelty, this paper highlights both  theoretically and empirically trust in public institutions as a new  explanation to taxpayer’ willingness to comply. The theoretical framework  goes beyond the standard model of tax evasion by allowing social norms and  interactions with public institutions. For empirical evidence, I use the  World Values Survey 2010-2014 to estimate the causal impact of trust in  public institutions on tax morale. The findings suggest that in emerging and  developing countries, social norms play a great role on tax morale, whereas  in advanced countries institutional environment seems to be one of the most  important factors. The results remain robust after exploiting and conducting  several sensitivity analysis.

 

    Keywords: public institutions, signal effects, tax morale, tax evasion,

 

     trust

 

    JEL: D70 H26 H31 K42

 

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:shr:wpaper:15-14&r=soc

 

 

 

 8. Entry or Exit? The Effect of Voluntary Participation on Cooperation

 

    Daniele Nosenzo (Department of Economics, University of Nottingham.)

 

    Fabio Tufano (Department of Economics, University of Nottingham.)  We study the effects of voluntary participation on cooperation in collective  action problems. Voluntary participation may foster cooperation through an  entry mechanism, which leads to assortative selection of interaction  partners, or an exit mechanism, whereby the opportunity to leave the  partnership can be used as a threat against free-riders. We examine the  effectiveness of these mechanisms in a one-shot public goods experiment.

 

 Voluntary participation has a positive effect on provision only through the  exit mechanism. Assortative selection of interaction partners seems to play a  minor role in our setting, whereas the threat of costly exit is a powerful  force to discipline free-riding.

 

    Keywords: public goods; cooperation; voluntary participation; exit; entry;

 

     experiment

 

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notcdx:2015-20&r=soc

 

 

 

 9. Lab Measures of Other-Regarding Preferences Can Predict Some Related

 

     on-the-Job Behavior: Evidence from a Large Scale Field Experiment

 

    Stephen V. Burks (Division of Social Science, University of Minnesota,

 

     Institute for the Study of Labor, Centre for Decision Research and

 

     Experimental Economics (CeDEx), University of Nottingham)

 

    Daniele Nosenzo (Department of Economics, University of Nottingham.)

 

    Jon Anderson (Division of Science and Mathematics, University of Minnesota)

 

    Matthew Bombyk (Innovations for Poverty Action)

 

    Derek Ganzhorn (Northwestern University School of Law)

 

    Lorenz Goette (Institute for the Study of Labor, Department of Economics,

 

     University of Minnesota)

 

    Aldo Rustichini (Northwestern University School of Law, University of

 

     Bonn, Institute for Applied Microeconomics)  We measure a specific form of other-regarding behavior, costly cooperation  with an anonymous other, among 645 subjects at a trucker training program in  the Midwestern US. Using a sequential, strategic form of the Prisoners’  Dilemma, we categorize subjects as: Free Rider, Conditional Cooperator, and  Unconditional Cooperator. We observe the subjects on the job for up to two  years afterwards in two naturally-occurring choices—whether to send two  types of satellite uplink messages from their trucks. The first identifies  trailers requiring repair, which benefits fellow drivers, while the second  benefits the experimenters by giving them some followup data. Because of the  specific nature of the technology and job conditions (which we carefully

 

 review) each of these otherwise situationally similar field decisions  represents an act of costly cooperation towards an anonymous other in a  setting that does not admit of repeated-game or reputation-effect  explanations. We find that individual differences in costly cooperation  observed in the lab do predict individual differences in the field in the  first choice but not the second. We suggest that this difference is linked to  the difference in the social identities of the beneficiaries (fellow drivers  versus experimenters), and we conjecture that whether or not individual  variations in pro-sociality generalize across settings (whether in the lab or

 

 field) may depend in part on this specific contextual factor: whether the  social identities, and the relevant prescriptions (or norms) linked to them  that are salient for subjects (as in Akerlof and Kranton (2000); (2010)), are  appropriately parallel.

 

    Keywords: experiments; generalizability; external validity; parallelism;

 

     social identity; otherregarding behavior; costly cooperation, social

 

     preferences; prisoners’ dilemma; trucker; truckload

 

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notcdx:2015-21&r=soc

 

 

 

10. The Evolution of Culture and Institutions: Evidence from the Kuba Kingdom

 

    Sara Lowes

 

    Nathan Nunn

 

    James A. Robinson

 

    Jonathan Weigel

 

 We use variation in historical state centralization to examine the impact of  institutions on cultural norms. The Kuba Kingdom, established in Central  Africa in the early 17th century by King Shyaam, had more developed state  institutions than the other independent villages and chieftaincies in the  region. It had an unwritten constitution, separation of political powers, a  judicial system with courts and juries, a police force and military,  taxation, and significant public goods provision. Comparing individuals from  the Kuba Kingdom to those from just outside the Kingdom, we find that  centralized formal institutions are associated with weaker norms of  rule-following and a greater propensity to cheat for material gain.

 

    JEL: D03 N47

 

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21798&r=soc

 

 

 

11. Business Networks and Crisis Performance: Professional, Political, and

 

     Family Ties

 

    Richard W. Carney (Australian National University, Australia)

 

    Travers Barclay Child (VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands)  Do political ties, family-business group affiliation, and professional  connections collectively matter for firm performance? By exploiting a new  dataset for 1,290 large East Asian firms during the 2008 financial crisis, we  offer a holistic comparison of these different networks. We find that  professional networks buoyed performance; political and family networks did  not. This suggests information access is a key benefit of business networks.

 

 A one standard deviation improvement to a firm's professional network  position cushioned quarterly ROA by 2/5 of a percentage point during the  crisis.

 

    Keywords: networks; political connections; interlocking directorates;

 

     family ownership; corporate governance

 

    JEL: G3 G14 L14

 

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20150135&r=soc

 

 

 

12. Immigrants and Gender Roles: Assimilation vs. Culture

 

    Francine D. Blau

 

 This paper examines evidence on the role of assimilation versus source  country culture in influencing immigrant women’s behavior in the United  States—looking both over time with immigrants’ residence in the United States  and across immigrant generations. It focuses particularly on labor supply  but, for the second generation, also examines fertility and education. We  find considerable evidence that immigrant source country gender roles  influence immigrant and second generation women’s behavior in the United  States. This conclusion is robust to various efforts to rule out the effect  of other unobservables and to distinguish the effect of culture from that of  social capital. These results support a growing literature that suggests that  culture matters for economic behavior. At the same time, the results suggest  considerable evidence of assimilation of immigrants. Immigrant women narrow  the labor supply gap with native-born women with time in the United States,  and, while our results suggest an important role for intergenerational  transmission, they also indicate considerable convergence of immigrants to  native levels of schooling, fertility, and labor supply across generations.

 

    JEL: J13 J16 J22 J24 J61

 

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21756&r=soc

 

 

 

13. Who cares about your Facebook friends? Credit scoring for microfinance

 

    DE CNUDDE, Sofie

 

    MOEYERSOMS, Julie

 

    STANKOVA, Marija

 

    TOBBACK, Ellen

 

    JAVALY, Vinayak

 

    MARTENS, David

 

 Microfinance has known a large increase in popularity, yet the scoring of  such credit still remains a difficult challenge. In general, retail credit  scoring uses socio-demographic and credit data. We complement such data with  social network data in an innovative manner i.e. with fine-grained interest  and social network data from Facebook. Using a unique dataset of 4,985  microfinance loans from the Philippines, we show how the different data types  can predict creditworthiness. A distinction is made between the relationships  that the available data imply: (1) look-a-likes are persons who resemble one  another in some manner, be it liking the same pages, having the same  education, etc. (2) friends have a clearly articulated friendship  relationship on Facebook, and finally (3) the \Best Friends Forever" (BFFs)  are friends that interact with one another. Our analyses show two interesting  conclusions for this emerging application. Firstly, applying relational  learners on BFF data yields better results than considering only the friends  data. Secondly, the interest-based data that defines look-a-likes, is more  predictive than the friendship or BFF data. Moreover, the model built on  interest data is not significantly worse than the model that uses all  available data, including the friendship data. Hence begging the question:

 

 who cares about your Facebook friends when your interest data is available?

 

    Keywords: Networks, Data mining, Default prediction, Microcredit

 

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ant:wpaper:2015018&r=soc

 

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