In this issue we feature 7 current papers on the theme of social capital, chosen by Fabio Sabatini (Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”):

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1. Nudging the electorate: what works and why? Felix Koelle; Tom Lane; Daniele Nosenzo; Chris Starmer
2. When You Know Your Neighbour Pays Taxes: Information, Peer Effects, and Tax Compliance - Alm, James; Bloomquist, Kim M.; McKee, Michael
3. Physical distance and cooperativeness towards strangers - Kühl, Leonie; Szech, Nora
4. Peer effects in risky choices among adolescents - Konstanting Lucks; Melanie Lührmann; Joachim K. Winter
5. Do social networks shape the geography of crowdfunding? Sylvain Dejean
6. Game-Theoretic Accounts of Social Norms. The Role of Normative Expectations - Cristina Bicchieri; Alessandro Sontuoso
7. Peer Effects and Social Influence in Post-16 Educational Choice - Stefan Speckesser; Sophie Hedges

1. Nudging the electorate: what works and why?

   Felix Koelle (Department of Economics, University of Cologne)

   Tom Lane (Department of Economics, University of Nottingham)

   Daniele Nosenzo (School of Economics, University of Nottingham)

   Chris Starmer (School of Economics, University of Nottingham)  We report two studies investigating whether, and if so how, different  interventions affect voter registration rates. In a natural field experiment  conducted before the 2015 UK General Election, we varied messages on a  postcard sent by Oxford City Council to unregistered student voters  encouraging them to register to vote. Relative to a baseline, emphasising  negative monetary incentives (the possibility of being fined) significantly  increased registration rates, while positive monetary incentives (chances of  winning a lottery) had no significant effects. In the second study, we show  that the success of the negative monetary incentive intervention and failure  of the positive monetary incentive intervention can be partly explained by  social norms.

   Keywords: Voter Registration; Voting; Field Experiment; Nudging; Social Norms; Fines; Rewards

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notcdx:2017-16&r=soc

2. When You Know Your Neighbour Pays Taxes: Information, Peer Effects, and Tax Compliance

   Alm, James

   Bloomquist, Kim M.

   McKee, Michael

 In this paper, we suggest that individuals’ tax compliance behaviours are  affected by the behaviour of their “neighbours†, or those about whom they  may have information, whom they may know, or with whom they may interact on a  regular basis. Individuals are more likely to file and to report their taxes  when they believe that other individuals are also filing and reporting their  taxes; conversely, when individuals believe that others are cheating on their  taxes, they may well become cheaters themselves. We use experimental methods  to test the role of such information about peer effects on compliance  behaviour. In one treatment setting, we inform individuals about the  frequency that their neighbours submit a tax return. In a second treatment  setting, we inform them about the number of their neighbours who are audited,  together with the penalties that they pay. In both cases, we examine the  impact of information on filing behaviour and also on subsequent reporting  behaviour. We find that providing information on whether one’s neighbours  are filing returns and/or reporting income has a statistically significant  and economically large impact on individual filing and reporting decisions.

 However, this “neighbour†information does not always improve compliance,  depending on the exact content of the information.

   Keywords: Tax evasion, Tax compliance, Behavioural economics, Experimental economics,

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vuw:vuwcpf:6775&r=soc

3. Physical distance and cooperativeness towards strangers

   Kühl, Leonie

   Szech, Nora

 Cooperativeness among genetically unrelated humans remains a major puzzle in  the social sciences. We explore the causal impact of physical distance on  willingness to help. In a field setting, participants decide about supporting  local refugees at the dispense of money to themselves. We vary physical  distance only, and keep other factors such as cultural distance fixed. The  data shows that an increase in local physical distance decreases willingness  to donate. A laboratory experiment confirms this finding. We further explore  the causal roles of exposure (in the field) and of larger distances (in the lab) with a total of 475 participants.

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:kitwps:110&r=soc

4. Peer effects in risky choices among adolescents

   Konstanting Lucks (Institute for Fiscal Studies)

   Melanie Lührmann (Institute for Fiscal Studies and Royal Holloway,

    University of London)

   Joachim K. Winter (Institute for Fiscal Studies and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) 

We study the effects of peers on risky decision making among adolescents in  the age range of 13 to 15 years. In a field experiment, we randomly allocated  school classes to two social interaction treatments. Students were allowed to  discuss their choices with a natural peer – either a friend or a randomly  selected classmate – before individually making choices in an incentivised  lottery task. In the control group, adolescents made choices without being  able to discuss them with a peer. In addition, we collected information on  existing peer networks. This novel design allows us to separate two channels  of peer influence, assortative matching on preferences and the effect of  social interaction on choices. We find that friends and classmates are  matched on socio-demographic characteristics but not on risk preferences. In  contrast, social interaction strongly increases the similarity of teenagers’

 risky choices. A large fraction of peers align their choices perfectly.

   Keywords: peer effects; assortative matching; social interaction; risk and loss aversion

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:17/16&r=soc

5. Do social networks shape the geography of crowdfunding?

   Sylvain Dejean (CEREGE - Centre de Recherche en sciences de Gestion - EA

    1722 - La Rochelle - ULR - Université de La Rochelle)  Does the distance still matters in a context where digital technologies  promised to eliminate distance-related costs? In crowdfunding platforms, the  founder of a project and the backers mainly exchange tacit information  (trustworthiness and seriousness of the founder, feasibility of a project),  challenging the ability of the Internet to abolish the cost of distance. We  investigate how the existence of social ties between two geographical areas,  by lowering the asymmetry of information, can shape the flow of funding in a  given country. We take advantage of a unique database provided by the French  leader of reward-based Crowdfunding. With a dataset containing 12887 projects  and 452 850 contributions representing a value of 19 million euros over the  period 2012/2015, we estimate, for each pair of the 94 French regions, the  number and the amount of bilateral funding as well as their determinants in a  gravity-like equation model. To account for the existence of social ties  between French regions we exploit information of the French national Census  of 2013 about regional migration. Our mains results are first that the  elasticity of distance is still important (around 0.5) in the context of  reward-based crowdfunding platforms. We then show that taking into account  the existence of social ties between regions strongly reduces and even  annihilates (under some specifications) the impact of distance. This result  suggests that if digital technology could have reduced the geographical  distance, only social proximity seems able to decrease the  information-related costs.

   Keywords: Crowdfunding,economic geography,gravity,social networks

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01645147&r=soc

6. Game-Theoretic Accounts of Social Norms. The Role of Normative Expectations

   Cristina Bicchieri

   Alessandro Sontuoso (Philosophy, Politics and Economics, University of Pennsylvania)

 This is a draft of a chapter in a planned book on behavioral game theory.

 Social norms and social preferences have increasingly become an integral part  of the economics discourse. After disentangling the two notions, this paper  focuses on social norms, which we stipulate as group-specific solutions to  strategic problems. More precisely, we define social norms as behavioral  regularities emerging in mixed-motive games, as a result of preferences for  conformity conditional on an endogenous set of beliefs and expectations. To  that end, we review models that explicitly feature normative expectations, as  well as models that account for category-specific prescriptions. We finally  survey some relevant experimental evidence.

   Keywords: social norms, social preferences, social dilemmas

   JEL: C72 C92

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ppc:wpaper:0011&r=soc

7. Peer Effects and Social Influence in Post-16 Educational Choice

   Stefan Speckesser

   Sophie Hedges

 This paper investigates whether the educational choices that young people  make after the completion of their GCSEs (at age 16) are influenced by their  peers. More specifically, it takes advantage of the variation in peer groups  that arises when students move from primary to secondary school in order to  isolate the impact of secondary school peers on the choice of educational  trajectory. These trajectories are broadly classified as academic,  vocational, a combination of the two, or no education at all. In order to  overcome the common problems associated with the identification of peer  effects, the ability of the primary school peers of secondary school peers,  who are not going to the same secondary school, is used as an instrument for  secondary school peer group quality. These ‘peers of peers’ did not go to the  same primary or secondary school as the individual of interest and so cannot  have had any direct impact on them. Our results show that higher ability  peers reduce the likelihood that an individual will choose a vocational  course at age 16 after controlling for the individual’s own ability. We also  find a very strong effect of household income on education choices, showing  that the more deprived a student’s background is, the more likely they are to  opt for a vocational trajectory over an academic one.

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nsr:niesrd:483&r=soc

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