In this issue we feature 6 current papers on the theme of social capital, chosen by Fabio Sabatini (Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”):

1. Qanats By Alireza Naghavi; Mohsen Shaeyan
2. The Long-Run Effects of Male-Biased Sex Ratios on Mateship and Social Capital By Sefa Awaworyi Churchill; Russell Smyth; Trong-Anh Trinh
3. Social interactions, loneliness and health: A new angle on an old debate By Casabianca, Elizabeth; Kovacic, Matija
4. The Role of Friends in the Opioid Epidemic By Effrosyni Adamopoulou; Jeremy Greenwood; Nezih Guner; Karen Kopecky
5. Weak and Strong Formal Institutions in Resolving Social Dilemmas: Are They Double-Edged Swords? By Mekvabishvili, Rati
6. The Behavioral, Economic, and Political Impact of the Internet and Social Media: Empirical Challenges and Approaches By Sabatini, Fabio

1. Qanats

   By:	Alireza Naghavi; Mohsen Shaeyan
   Abstract:	Qanats – traditional small-scale Persian irrigation systems – required a complex of cooperative local institutions for their construction and maintenance. We show that these institutions produced a (local) culture of cooperation in Iran that persists to the present day when qanats are no longer of economic value. We use unique geo-coded data on qanat coordinates in Iran and build an IV using grid-level geological preconditions necessary for construction and functioning of qanats: gently-sloped terrains and intermediate clay content. Qanats impact positively activities of cooperatives, as well as pervasiveness of credit institutions and trust in neighbors, particularly under stable climatic conditions.
   Keywords:	Irrigation, Cooperation, Qanat, Cooperatives, Social capital, Trade routes, Culture, Persistence
   JEL:	N55 O13 O53 Q13 Q15 Z10 D70
   Date:	2023–05–10
   URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csl:devewp:486&r=soc

2. The Long-Run Effects of Male-Biased Sex Ratios on Mateship and Social Capital

   By:	Sefa Awaworyi Churchill (School of Economics, Finance & Marketing, RMIT University, VIC, Australia); Russell Smyth (Monash Business School, Monash University, VIC, Australia); Trong-Anh Trinh (Centre for Health Economics, Monash University, VIC, Australia)
   Abstract:	We employ a natural experiment – the transport of convicts to the British colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries – to examine the long-run effect of gender norms on the evolution of mateship and the formation of social capital in modern-day Australia. We find that people who live in areas in which sex ratios were historically male-biased, have higher social capital. Our instrumental variable estimates suggest that a standard deviation increase in the historical population sex ratio causes a 12.3% increase in social capital, while the reduced form estimates indicate that a standard deviation increase in the convict sex ratio causes a 5.4% increase in social capital. We show that gender norms have been transmitted within families and via marriage through assortative matching, as well as through shared remembrance in the form of war memorials in neighbourhoods in which sex ratios were historically male-biased. We explore the effect of gender norms on specific facets of social capital and find that in neighbourhoods characterised by conservative gender norms and well-defined masculinity norms due to historically high sex ratios, people are more likely to help each other, more likely to do things together and are more close-knit.
   Keywords:	sex ratios, gender norms, convicts, social capital, Australia
   JEL:	I31 J16 N37 N47 O10 Z13 Z18
   Date:	2024–01
   URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2024-02&r=soc

3. Social interactions, loneliness and health: A new angle on an old debate

   By:	Casabianca, Elizabeth; Kovacic, Matija
   Abstract:	This paper investigates the relationship between historically rooted norms that drive individ- uals to adhere to predeftned behavioural standards and attitudes towards loneliness. Focusing on a sub-population of second-generation immigrants, we identify an intergenerationally trans- mitted component of culture that respects the importance of restrained discipline and rules characterising highly intensive pre-industrial agricultural systems. We illustrate how this cul- tural dimension impacts perceptions of the quality of social relationships and plays a substantial role in the likelihood of experiencing loneliness. Subsequently, we show the validity of the iden- tifted trait as an instrument for loneliness in a two-stage model for health. We also ftnd that loneliness has a direct impact on body mass index and speciftc mental health issues, with these results being robust across a range of sensitivity checks. These ftndings contribute to the grow- ing body of research emphasising the pivotal role of attitudes in predicting signiftcant economic and health outcomes, thus opening up a new pathway through which deeply-rooted geograph- ical, cultural, and individual characteristics can influence comparative economic development processes in both origin and destination countries.
   Keywords:	loneliness, ancestral characteristics, social norms, health
   JEL:	I12 I14 J14 D91 Z13
   Date:	2024
   URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1378&r=soc

4. The Role of Friends in the Opioid Epidemic

   By:	Effrosyni Adamopoulou; Jeremy Greenwood; Nezih Guner; Karen Kopecky
   Abstract:	The role of friends in the US opioid epidemic is examined. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health), adults aged 25-34 and their high school best friends are focused on. An instrumental variable technique is employed to estimate peer effects in opioid misuse. Severe injuries in the previous year are used as an instrument for opioid misuse in order to estimate the causal impact of someone misusing opioids on the probability that their best friends also misuse. The estimated peer effects are significant: Having a best friend with a reported serious injury in the previous year increases the probability of own opioid misuse by around 7 percentage points in a population where 17 percent ever misuses opioids. The effect is driven by individuals without a college degree and those who live in the same county as their best friends.
   JEL:	C26 D10 I12 J11
   Date:	2024–01
   URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32032&r=soc

5. Weak and Strong Formal Institutions in Resolving Social Dilemmas: Are They Double-Edged Swords?

   By:	Mekvabishvili, Rati
   Abstract:	Many modern societies sustain large-scale cooperation among strangers and maintain the provision of public goods through well-functioning top-down formal institutions. However, it is important to understand the differences between weak and strong formal institutions in achieving two key goals in social dilemma situations: sustaining socially beneficial equilibria and fostering individual prosocial behavior. Additionally, we need to examine what happens to cooperation when the credibility of a formal institution is undermined and what occurs when it ceases to function. In this novel experiment of a repeated public goods game, we explore the effects of an exogenous centralized punishment mechanism with a low probability, which serves as a weak formal institution, and compare it with a strong formal institution. Our findings are encouraging, as they demonstrate that even under a weak formal institution, relatively high levels of cooperation can be sustained. However, irrespective of whether the punishment probability for free riders is low or high, once the punishment mechanism is removed, cooperation breaks down to a similarly low level. This suggests that regardless of the strength of the formal institution, there is an alike effect of crowding out an individual’s intrinsic motivation for cooperation. Therefore, the application of a centralized punishment mechanism as a policy tool to promote cooperation, regardless of its strength, appears to be a double-edged sword: socially beneficial outcome and intrinsically motivated cooperation hardly can be attained simultaneously
   Keywords:	formal institutions, public good, centralized punishment, crowding out, cooperation
   JEL:	C90 D02 H41
   Date:	2023–12–20
   URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:119659&r=soc

6. The Behavioral, Economic, and Political Impact of the Internet and Social Media: Empirical Challenges and Approaches

   By:	Sabatini, Fabio (Sapienza University of Rome)
   Abstract:	This paper presents a review of empirical methods used to assess the behavioral, economic, and political outcomes of Internet and social media usage. Instead of merely surveying the various impacts of the Internet, we examine the methods adopted to identify these impacts. We describe two main approaches for establishing causal effects, each with strengths and limitations. The first approach involves searching for exogenous sources of variation in the access to fast Internet or specific content. The second approach takes the form of field or laboratory experiments. In this paper, we focus on the first approach, delving into the methodological threats, empirical design, and main findings of the most prominent studies that exploit natural or quasi-experiments for identifying the causal impact of high-speed Internet or specific social media. This undertaking allows us to highlight the key empirical challenges in the field of Internet and social media economics while summarizing the causal relationships that the literature has uncovered so far.
   Keywords:	internet, social media, artificial intelligence, broadband infrastructure, politics, social capital
   JEL:	D71 D72 D74 D83 L82 L86 L88 L96 L98 Z13
   Date:	2023–12
   URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16703&r=soc

   
   
   

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