NEP: New Economics Papers - Social Norms and Social Capital - 14-06-2014

Date:

2014-06-03

By:

Sabatini, Fabio
Sarracino, Francesco

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:56436&r=soc [3]

Does Facebook make people lonely and unhappy? Empirical studies have produced conflicting results about the effect of social networking sites (SNS) use on individual welfare. We use a representative sample of the Italian population to investigate how actual and virtual networks of social relationships influence subjective well-being (SWB). We find a significantly negative correlation between online networking and self-reported happiness. We address endogeneity in online networking by exploiting technological characteristics of the pre-existing voice telecommunication infrastructures that exogenously determined the availability of broadband for high-speed Internet. We try to further disentangle the direct effect of SNS use on well-being from the indirect effect possibly caused by the impact of SNS’s on trust and sociability in a SEM analysis. We find that online networking plays a positive role in SWB through its impact on physical interactions. On the other hand, SNS use is associated with lower social trust, which is in turn positively correlated with SWB. The overall effect of networking on individual welfare is significantly negative.

Keywords:

social participation; online networks; Facebook; social trust; social capital; subjective well-being; hate speech; broadband; digital divide.

JEL:

C36 D85 O33 Z1 Z13

Date:

2014-06

By:

Yann Algan (Department of Economics, Sciences Po - Sciences Po)
Pierre Cahuc (Department of Economics, Ecole Polytechnique - CNRS : UMR7176 - Polytechnique - X, CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - INSEE - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique)
Marc Sangnier (AMSE - Aix-Marseille School of Economics - Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) - École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) - Ecole Centrale Marseille (ECM))

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01000117&r=soc [4]

We show the existence of a twin peaks relation between trust and the size of the welfare state that stems from two opposing forces. Uncivic people support large welfare states because they expect to benefit from them without bearing their costs. But civic individuals support generous benefits and high taxes only when they are surrounded by trustworthy individuals. We provide empirical evidence for these behaviors and this twin peaks relation in the OECD countries.

Keywords:

welfare state; trust; civism; corruption; redistribution

Date:

2014

By:

Vidal-Robert, Jordi (University of Warwick and CAGE)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:192&r=soc [5]

Using a newly collected dataset on inquisitorial activity for seven regions, fourteen provinces and 947 municipalities, I analyze the long-term economic consequences of the Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834). I show that inquisitorial activity is negatively associated to regional and provincial economic growth (an increase of a thousand inquisitorial trials is associated with 3% to 5% lower urbanization rates). At the municipal level, I find that municipalities affected by the Inquisition experienced an annual population growth rate 0.11% lower than their counterparts. This result is robust when controlling for alternative explanatory factors, such as pre-existent religiosity and proxies for trade activity. I explore three channels through which the Inquisition may have had an impact on economic outcomes. While inquisitorial activity is not linked to levels of trust or social polarization, I find it is negatively associated with the adoption of new technologies and the creation of municipal centres of cultural transmission.

Keywords:

Spanish Inquisition, polarization

Date:

2014-06

By:

Tonin, Mirco (University of Southampton)
Vlassopoulos, Michael (University of Southampton)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8238&r=soc [6]

The public sector employs a large share of the labor force to execute important functions (e.g. regulation and public good provision) in an environment beset by severe agency problems. Attracting workers who are motivated to serve the public interest is important to mitigate these problems. We investigate whether public and private sector employees differ in terms of their public service motivation, as measured by their propensity to volunteer, using a representative sample of elderly workers from 12 European countries. To overcome potential identification difficulties related to unobservable differences in working conditions (e.g. working time, required effort, job security, career incentives), we also look at retired workers. We find that public sector workers, both those currently employed and those already retired, are significantly more prosocial; however, the difference in prosociality is explained by differences in the composition of the workforce across the two sectors, in terms of (former) workers' education and occupation. Looking across industries and within occupations, we find that former public sector workers in education are more motivated, while there are no differences across the two sectors when considering broad occupational categories. We also investigate other dimensions and find no differences in terms of trust, while there is evidence of some differences in risk aversion, political preferences, life and job satisfaction.

Keywords:

public sector, public service motivation, risk aversion, trust, life satisfaction, volunteering

JEL:

D64 H83 J45

Date:

2014-06

By:

Niels Vermeer
Daniel van Vuuren
Maarten van Rooij (DNB/Netspar)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpb:discus:278&r=soc [7]

In this study, we gauge the impact of social interactions on individual retirement preferences. A survey including self-assessments and vignette questions shows that individual preferences are affected by preferences and actual retirement behavior of the social environment. Retirement from paid work depends on the retirement age of relatives, friends, colleagues and acquaintances. Information and advice provided by the social environment play a role in the retirement decision. A majority of respondents would postpone retirement when their social environment retires later. A one year increase in the social environment’s retirement age leads to an average increase of three months in the individual retirement age. In addition, people tend to stick more to the state pension age than to other retirement ages, which suggests a norm about retirement at the state pension age.

JEL:

J26 J14 Z13

Date:

2014-05

By:

Barone, Guglielmo (Bank of Italy)
D'Ignazio, Alessio (Bank of Italy)
de Blasio, Guido (Bank of Italy)
Naticchioni, Paolo (University of Rome 3)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8228&r=soc [8]

We analyze the impact of immigration on voting. Using Italian municipality data and IV estimation strategy, we find that immigration generates a sizable causal increase in votes for the centre-right coalition, which has a political platform less favorable to immigrants. Additional findings are: big cities behave differently, with no impact of immigration on electoral outcomes; gains in votes for the centre-right coalition correspond to loss of votes for the centre-left parties, a decrease in voter turnout, and a rise in protest votes; cultural diversity, competition in the labor market and for public services are the most relevant channels at work.

Keywords:

immigration, voting, political economy

JEL:

D72 P16 J61

Date:

2014-02

By:

Simon Gächter (School of Economics, University of Nottingham)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notcdx:2014-02&r=soc [9]

This chapter presents some insights from basic behavioural research on the role of human pro-social motivation to maintain social order. I argue that social order can be conceptualised as a public good game. Past attempts to explain social order typically relied on the assumption of selfish and rational agents ("homo economicus"). The last twenty years of research in behavioural and experimental economics have challenged this view. After presenting the most important findings of recent research on human pro-sociality I discuss the evidence on three pillars of the maintenance of social order. The first pillar is internalised norms of cooperation, sustained by emotions such as guilt and shame. The second pillar is the behaviour of other people who typically are "conditional cooperators" willing to cooperate if others do so as well. This motivation can sustain cooperation if enough people cooperate but can jeopardise social order if many others follow selfish inclinations. The third pillar are sanctions meted out to anyone who does not cooperate; ideally punishment can work as a mere threat without being executed much. The chapter also presents some evidence on the cross-cultural variability of some findings, in particular with regard to punishment behaviour. The chapter concludes with remarks on future research.

Keywords:

social order; social dilemma; pro-sociality; strong reciprocity; moral emotions; social norms; conditional cooperation; punishment; rule of law

Date:

2014-06

By:

Thomas Gries (University of Paderborn)
Ha van Dung (University of Paderborn)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pdn:ciepap:81&r=soc [10]

In this paper, we investigate the role of the social network nexus and the insurance nexus in determining household savings and productive capital formation in rural Vietnam. We analyze the issue in two dimensions, stocks and flows, and consider the exposure to negative shocks. The instrumental variable method is employed and unlike previous studies, we account for the endogeneity of all concerned variables. The results indicate that the social network nexus has more impacts in “ex ante” rather than in “ex post” households. In both households groups, the effects of the insurance nexus dominate over those of the social network nexus. In the case of the stocks, we also find that the precautionary view is held in liquid assets but not in productive assets.

Keywords:

rural households, liquid assets, productive assets, social networks, organizations, insurance, disasters

JEL:

O12 O16

Date:

2014-06-10

By:

Kvaløy, Ola (UiS)
Luzuriaga, Miguel (UiS)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:stavef:2014_006&r=soc [11]

In standard trust games, no trust is the default, and trust generates a potential gain. We investigate a reframed trust game in which full trust is default and where no trust generates a loss. We find significantly lower levels of trust and trustworthiness in loss domain when full trust is default than in gain domain when no trust is default. As a consequence, trust is on average profitable in gain domain, but not in loss domain. We also find that subjects respond more positively to higher trust in loss domain than in gain domain.

Keywords:

Trust; Reciprocity; Framing; Defaults; Reference Points; Experiment

JEL:

C72 C91

Date:

2014-03

By:

Simon Gächter (School of Economics, University of Nottingham)
Christian Thöni (Centre Walras-Pareto, University of Lausanne)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notcdx:2014-03&r=soc [12]

Social preferences and social influence effects (“peer effectsâ€) are well documented, but little is known about how peers shape social preferences. Settings where social preferences matter are often situations where peer effects are likely too. In a gift-exchange experiment with independent payoffs between two agents we find causal evidence for peer effects. Efforts are positively correlated but with a kink: agents follow a low-performing but not a high-performing peer. This contradicts major theories of social preferences which predict that efforts are unrelated, or negatively related. Some theories allow for positively-related efforts but cannot explain most observations. Conformism, norm following and social esteem are candidate explanations.

Keywords:

social preferences, voluntary cooperation, peer effects, reflection problem, gift-exchange; conformism; social norms; social esteem, experiments.

Date:

2014-01

By:

Ana Mauleon (Saint-Louis University — Brussels)
Nils Roehl (University of Paderborn)
Vincent Vannetelbosch (CORE, University of Louvain)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pdn:ciepap:74&r=soc [13]

The objective of the paper is to analyze the formation of social networks where individuals are allowed to engage in several groups at the same time. These group structures are interpreted here as social networks. Each group is supposed to have specific rules or constitutions governing which members may join or leave it. Given these constitutions, we consider a social network to be stable if no group is modified any more. We provide requirements on constitutions and players’ preferences under which stable social networks are induced for sure. Furthermore, by embedding many-to-many matchings into our setting, we apply our model to job markets with labor unions. To some extent the unions may provide job guarantees and, therefore, have influence on the stability of the job market.

Keywords:

Social networks, Constitutions, Stability, Many-to-Many Matchings.

JEL:

C72 C78 D85

Date:

2014

By:

Valeria Ivaniushina (National Research University Higher School of Economics)
Daniel Alexandrov (National Research University Higher School of Economics)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:43/soc/2014&r=soc [14]

In this study we focus on the influence of peers on adolescents academic achievement. Specifically, how the learning motivation of peers is related to a student's school grades. We use multilevel regression to analyze the influence of peers on different levels of social circles: school, class, personal network, and compare the effects of "assigned friends" and "chosen friends". The methods of social network analysis are used to define the personal network of a student in different ways: cliques, complete ego networks, and mutual ego networks. We demonstrate that the model improves considerably when the level of personal networks is included between individual and class levels. The learning motivation of a student's friends (defined as a clique or ego network) has an important influence on the student’s school performance, net of student’s personal characteristics.

Keywords:

social network analysis, schools, peer influence, ego networks, cliques

JEL:

Z

Date:

2014-05

By:

Lilia Zhurakhovska (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg & Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpg:wpaper:2014_06&r=soc [15]

The paper investigates the introduction of an institution, in form of an impartial authority (third party), into a two-person situation. The impartial authority can reward a stranger for acting according to a desired behavioral norm. The reward is costly for the authority and her behavior cannot be strategic, i.e., it cannot lead to higher earnings for her in a later stage. A trust game followed by a helping game is implemented. The trustee in the trust game becomes the recipient in the helping game. This paper demonstrates that positive strong indirect reciprocity can exist in one-shot settings (helpers transfer more money to their recipients the more these are trustworthy) and that positive strong indirect reciprocity is not diminishing if the reward can be anticipated. Furthermore, the positive strong indirect reciprocity is correctly anticipated and leads to higher trustworthiness in the treatment.

Keywords:

Norms, strong indirect reciprocity, third-party reward, trust game, helping game, anticipation

JEL:

D63 C90 D03

Date:

2014-05-07

By:

Alessandro Bucciol (Department of Economics, University of Verona)
Natalia Montinari (University of Lund, School of Economics)
Marco Piovesan (Department of Economics, Copenhagen University)
Jean-Robert Tyran

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kuiedp:1412&r=soc [16]

Free riding problems can be more severe in multiple-person social dilemmas than in two-person dilemmas, since agents can hide their actions behind the veil of anonymity. In this paper, we use field data on waste sorting to study the effect of visibility in social dilemmas. We compare the sorting behavior of households sharing (or not) their bin for unsorted waste. Since households have to pay a fee proportional to their unsorted waste production, sharing the bin means sharing the fee. We find that, on average, household unsorted waste production is higher if three or more households share the same bin. Surprisingly, when only two households share the same bin, and therefore the household sorting behavior can be identified, unsorted waste production decreases compared to users not sharing the bin. Our interpretation is that shame and fear of punishment may play a role between the two sharing users.

Keywords:

Social Dilemmas, Free Riding, Visibility, Waste Management

JEL:

D01 D78 Q53

Date:

2013

By:

Charles Figuieres (Laboratoire Montpelliérain d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, INRA)
David Masclet (CREM, Centre de Recherches en Economie et Management, Université de Rennes 1)
Marc Willinger (Laboratoire Montpelliérain d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, INRA)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inr:wpaper:46420&r=soc [17]

This paper provides a general framework that accounts for the decay of the average contribution observed in most experiments on voluntary contributions to a public good. Each player balances her material utility loss from contributing with her psychological utility loss of deviating from her moral ideal. The novel and central idea of our model is that peoples moral motivation is "weak": their judgement about what is the right contribution to a public good can evolve in the course of interactions, depending partly on observed past contributions and partly on an intrinsic "moral ideal". Under the assumption of weakly morally motivated agents, average voluntary contributions can decline with repetition of the game. Our model also explains other regularities observed in experiments, in particular the phenomenon of over-contributions compared to the Nash prediction and the so-called restart effect, and it is compatible with the conditional cooperation hypothesis.

Keywords:

CONDITIONAL COOPERATION, VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTIONS, MORAL MOTIVATION, EXPERIMENTS ON PUBLIC GOODS GAMES., THEORIE DES JEUX , bien public, économie expérimentale, bien public