In this issue we feature 10 current papers on the theme of social capital:

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In this issue we have:

1. Political Identity and Trust - Pablo Hernandez; Dylan Minor
2. Keeping up with the e-Joneses: Do online social networks raise social comparisons? Fabio Sabatini; Francesco Sarracino
3. Building Trust in Rural Producer Organizations in Senegal: Results from a Randomized Controlled Trial - Bernard, Tanguy; Frölich, Markus; Landmann, Andreas; Unte, Pia Naima; Viceisza, Angelino; Wouterse, Fleur
4. Does Economic Prosperity Breed Trust? Brueckner, Markus; Chong, Alberto; Gradstein, Mark
5. Social Interactions Through Space and Time: Evidence from College Enrollment and Academic Mobility - Goulas, Sofoklis; Megalokonomou, Rigissa
6. Empirical methods for networks data: social effects, network formation and measurement error - Arun Advani; Bansi Malde
7. Social Responsibility in Market Interaction - Irlenbusch, Bernd; Saxler, David
8. Games Played on Networks - Yann Bramoullé; Rachel Kranton
9. Peer effects in development programme awareness of vulnerable groups in rural Tanzania - Bet Helena Caeyers
10. Can I Have Permission to Leave the House? Return Migration and the Transfer of Gender Norms - Tuccio, Michele; Wahba, Jackline

 1. Political Identity and Trust

    Pablo Hernandez (New York University AD)

    Dylan Minor (Harvard Business School, Strategy Unit)  We explore how political identity affects trust. Using an incentivized  experimental survey conducted on a representative sample of the U.S.

 population, we vary information about partners' partisan identity to elicit  trust behavior, beliefs about trustworthiness, and actual reciprocation. By  eliciting beliefs, we are able to assess whether differences in trust rates  are due to stereotyping or a "taste for discrimination." By measuring actual  trustworthiness, we are able to determine whether beliefs are statistically  correct. We find that trust is pervasive and depends on the partisan identity  of the trustee. Differential trust rates are explained by incorrect  stereotypes about the other's lack of trustworthiness rather than by a "taste  for discrimination." Given the importance of beliefs, we run additional  treatments in which we disclose previous reciprocation rates before  participants decide whether to trust. We find that beliefs are slightly more  optimistic compared with the previous treatments, suggesting that incorrect  stereotypes are hard to change.

    Keywords: Trust, Beliefs, Social Preferences, Political Ideology

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbs:wpaper:16-012&r=soc

 2. Keeping up with the e-Joneses: Do online social networks raise social comparisons?

    Fabio Sabatini

    Francesco Sarracino

 Online social networks such as Facebook disclose an unprecedented volume of  personal information amplifying the occasions for social comparisons. We test  the hypothesis that the use of social networking sites (SNS) increases  people's dissatisfaction with their income. After addressing endogeneity  issues, our results suggest that SNS users have a higher probability to  compare their achievements with those of others. This effect seems stronger  than the one exerted by TV watching, it is particularly strong for younger  people, and it affects men and women in a similar way.

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1507.08863&r=soc

 3. Building Trust in Rural Producer Organizations in Senegal: Results from a Randomized Controlled Trial

    Bernard, Tanguy (IFPRI, International Food Policy Research Institute)

    Frölich, Markus (University of Mannheim)

    Landmann, Andreas (University of Mannheim)

    Unte, Pia Naima (University of Mannheim)

    Viceisza, Angelino (Spelman College)

    Wouterse, Fleur (IFPRI, International Food Policy Research Institute)  Trust is crucial for successful collective action. A prime example is  collective commercialization of agricultural produce through producer  organizations. We conduct a cluster-randomized controlled trial in rural  Senegal in which we vary the number and the type of smallholder farmers –  members and/or leaders of local producer organizations – invited to a  three-day training on collective commercialization. We use this variation to  identify effects on intra-group trust, both direct treatment effects of  having participated in the training and spillover effects on farmers who did  not partake. Looking at different measures of trust in leaders' competence  and motives and of trust in members we find that participating in the  training significantly enhances both trust in leaders and trust in members.

 For trust in leaders, we also find a strong spillover effect. Our findings  suggest that relatively soft and non-costly interventions such as a group  training appear to be able to positively affect trust within producer  organizations.

    Keywords: rural producer organizations, smallholder farmers, trust, Senegal

    JEL: D71 O12 Q13

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9207&r=soc

 4. Does Economic Prosperity Breed Trust?

    Brueckner, Markus

    Chong, Alberto

    Gradstein, Mark

 We explore whether national economic prosperity enhances mutual generalized  trust. This is done using panel data of multiple waves of the World Values  Surveys, whereby national income levels are instrumented for using exogenous  oil price shocks. We find significant and substantial effects of national  income on the level of trust in the economy. In particular, a one percent  increase in national income tends to cause an average increase of one  percentage point (or more) in the likelihood that a person becomes trustful.

 One possible rationalization for this, exhibited in a simple model, is that  perceived prosperity signals that many people are trustworthy.

    Keywords: generalized trust; national income; oil price shocks

    JEL: O10 P17

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10749&r=soc

 5. Social Interactions Through Space and Time: Evidence from College Enrollment and Academic Mobility

    Goulas, Sofoklis

    Megalokonomou, Rigissa

 In the recent years, the importance of one's group of peers-be that friends,  colleagues, neighbors- has been widely emphasized in the literature. In this  paper, we ask whether individuals derive utility from conformity in college  enrollment and academic mobility. We propose a new methodology in mitigating  reflection and endogeneity issues in identifying social interactions. We  exploit a special institutional setting, in which schools are very close to  each other, allowing for students from different schools to interact. We  investigate utility spillovers from the educational choices of students in  consecutive cohorts. Spatial variation allows us to identify social  interactions in groups of various sizes. Using a new dataset that spans the  universe of high school graduates, we estimate general equilibrium effects of  social interactions. We find positive and significant externalities in the  decision to enrol in college and the decision to migrate to a different city  among peers that belong to the same social group.

    Keywords: college enrollment, social interactions, mobility, geography,

     reflection problem

    JEL: J24

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:65882&r=soc

 6. Empirical methods for networks data: social effects, network formation and measurement error

    Arun Advani (Institute for Fiscal Studies)

    Bansi Malde (Institute for Fiscal Studies)  In many contexts we may be interested in understanding whether direct  connections between agents, such as declared friendships in a classroom or  family links in a rural village, affect their outcomes. In this paper we  review the literature studying econometric methods for the analysis of social  networks. We begin by providing a common framework for models of social  effects, a class that includes the `linear-in-means' local average model, the  local aggregate model, and models where network statistics affect outcomes.

 We discuss identification of these models using both observational and  experimental/quasi-experimental data. We then discuss models of network  formation, drawing on a range of literatures to cover purely predictive  models, reduced form models, and structural models, including those with a  strategic element. Finally we discuss how one might collect data on networks,  and the measurement error issues caused by sampling of networks, as well as  measurement error more broadly.

    Keywords: Networks, Social Effects, Peer Effects, Econometrics,

     Endogeneity, Measurement Error, Sampling Design

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:14/34&r=soc

 7. Social Responsibility in Market Interaction

    Irlenbusch, Bernd (University of Cologne)

    Saxler, David (University of Cologne)  A recent debate raises the question whether market interaction erodes social  responsibility. In an experiment, we disentangle three major characteristics  of market interaction, diffusion of responsibility, social information, and  market framing, and provide evidence for how these characteristics influence  behavior when trade harms uninvolved parties. We model the negative  externalities from trade by reducing donations to a charity that provides  meals to needy children. Our results show that diffusion of responsibility  tends to encourage subjects to make purely self-interested decisions. This  holds to a much larger extent if the economic trans- action is framed as a  market. In contrast, social information increases social responsibility in  our setting. Observing the behavior of others seems to convince a substantial  fraction of people to behave steadfastly, i.e., they avoid trading a good  that comes with negative externalities, even if gains from trade are high.

    Keywords: social responsibility, diffusion of responsibility, social

     information, market framing, experiment

    JEL: C92 D62 M14

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9240&r=soc

 8. Games Played on Networks

    Yann Bramoullé (Aix-Marseille University (Aix-Marseille School of

     Economics), CNRS & EHESS)

    Rachel Kranton (Duke University)

 This chapter studies games played on fixed networks. These games capture a  wide variety of economic settings including local public goods, peer effects,  and technology adoption. We establish a common analytical framework to study  a wide game class. We unearth new connections between games in the literature  and in particular between those with binary actions, like coordination and  best-shot games, and those with continuous actions and linear best replies.

 We review and advance existing results by showing how they tie together  within the common framework. We discuss the game-theoretic underpinnings of  key notions including Bonacich centrality, maximal independent sets, and the  lowest and largest eigenvalue. We study the interplay of individual  heterogeneity and the network and we develop a new notion - interdependence -  to analyze how a shock to one agent affects the action of another agent. We  outline directions for future research.

    Keywords: Network Games, fixed networks, peer effects, coordination,

     interdependence

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aim:wpaimx:1530&r=soc

 9. Peer effects in development programme awareness of vulnerable groups in rural Tanzania

    Bet Helena Caeyers

 A pre-condition for grassroots participation, key for community-based  development success, is widespread programme knowledge among the eligible  population.  The current literature on local participatory institutions  mainly focuses on village meetings and media campaigns as a means to  strengthen community awareness.  The role played by social interactions in  this process has received little attention to date.  In this paper I use  Manski's (1993) standard linear-in-means model to estimate endogenous peer  effects on the awarenes of vulnerable groups on Tanzania Social Action Fund  II (TASAFII), i.e. Tanzania's flagship community-driven development  programme.  I employ a popular 2SLS estimation strategy developed by  Bramouille et al. (2009) and De Giorgi et al. (2010) on a unique spatial  household dataset from Tanzania to eliminate both the 'reflection bias'

 (Manski, 1993) and the 'exclusion bias' (Caeyers, 2014).  Denoting the  geographically nearest neighbours set as the relevant peer group in this  context, I identify significant average and heterogeneous endogenous social  interaction effects in the diffusion of information about TASAF II.  The  findings of this paper inform the design of effective sensitisation campaigns.

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:wpaper:wps/2014-11&r=soc

10. Can I Have Permission to Leave the House? Return Migration and the Transfer of Gender Norms

    Tuccio, Michele (University of Southampton)

    Wahba, Jackline (University of Southampton)  Does international return migration transfer gender norms? Focusing on  Jordan, an Arab country where discrimination against women and emigration  rates are high, this paper exploits unique data in which detailed information  on female empowerment allows us to construct several measures of  discriminatory social norms in Jordan on the role of women, female freedom of  mobility, and female decision-making power. Controlling for both emigration  and return migration selections, we find that women with a returnee family  member are more likely to have internalized discriminatory gender norms than  women in households with no migration experience. Further analysis shows that  results are driven by returnees from conservative Arab countries, suggesting  a transfer of negative norms from highly discriminatory destinations. We also  show the implications of our results beyond perceptions for several economic  and development outcomes, such as female labour force participation,  education and fertility.

    Keywords: international return migration, gender inequality, transfer of norms

    JEL: F22 J16 O15 O53

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9216&r=soc

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