In this issue we feature 5 current papers on the theme of social capital, chosen by Fabio Sabatini [1] (Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”):
1. When the Rich Do (Not) Trust the (Newly) Rich: Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Positive Random Shocks in the Trust Game Hernán Bejarano; Joris Gillet; Ismael Rodriguez-Lara
2. Conforming with Peers in Honesty and Cooperation Ozan Isler; Simon Gaechter
3. Family Social Norms and Child Labor Herz, Shirit Katav; Epstein, Gil S.
4. What Makes a Classmate a Peer? Examining which peers matter in NYC elementary schools Horrace, William; Jung, Hyunseok; Presler, Jonathan; Schwartz, Amy Ellen
5. Predicting trustworthiness across cultures: An experiment Adam Zylbersztejn; Zakaria Babutsidze; Nobuyuki Hanaki
1. When the Rich Do (Not) Trust the (Newly) Rich: Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Positive Random Shocks in the Trust Game Hernán Bejarano (CIDE / ESI Chapman University); Joris Gillet (Middlesex University London); Ismael Rodriguez-Lara (Universidad de Granada) We study behavior in a trust game where first-movers initially have a higher endowment than second-movers but the occurrence of a positive random shock can eliminate this inequality by increasing the endowment of the second-mover before the decision of the first-mover. We find that second-movers return less (i.e., they are less trustworthy) when they have a lower endowment than first-movers, compared with the case in which first and second-movers have the same endowment. Second-movers who have experienced the positive shock return more than those who did not; in fact, second-movers who have experienced the positive shock return more than secondmovers who had the same endowment as the first-mover from the outset. First-movers do not seem to anticipate this behavior from second-movers. They send less to secondmovers who benefited from a shock. These findings suggest that in addition to the distribution of the endowments the source of this distribution plays an important role in determining the levels of trust and trustworthiness. This, in turn, implies that current models of inequality aversion should be extended to accommodate for reference points if random positive shocks are possible in the trust game. JEL: C91 D02 D03 D69 Keywords: Trust game, endowment heterogeneity, random shocks, luck, inequality, aversion, reference-dependent utility, reference points. Date: 2021–12 URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aoz:wpaper:96&r=&r=soc [2]
2. Conforming with Peers in Honesty and Cooperation Ozan Isler; Simon Gaechter Peer observation can influence social norm perceptions as well as behavior in various moral domains, but is the tendency to be influenced by and conform with peers domain-general? In an online experiment (N = 815), we studied peer effects in honesty and cooperation and tested the individual-level links between these two moral domains. Participants completed both honesty and cooperation tasks after observing their peers. Consistent with the literature, separate analysis of the two domains indicated both negative and positive peer influences in honesty and in cooperation, with negative influences tending to be stronger. Behavioral tests linking the two domains at the individual-level revealed that cooperative participants were also more honest—a link that was associated with low Machiavellianism scores. While standard personality trait measures showed no links between the two domains in the tendency to conform, individual-level tests suggested that conformism is a domain-general behavioral trait observed across honesty and cooperation. Based on these findings, we discuss the potential of and difficulties in using peer observation to influence social norm compliance as an avenue for further research and as a tool to promote social welfare. JEL: C91 Keywords: honesty, cooperation, peer influence, conformism, social norms Date: 2021 URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9493&r=&r=soc [3]
3. Family Social Norms and Child Labor Herz, Shirit Katav (Academic College of Tel-Aviv Yaffo); Epstein, Gil S. (Bar-Ilan University) Child labor is a widespread phenomenon and therefore is of interest to both researchers and policy makers. Various reasons for the existence of child labor have been proposed with the goal of designing appropriate solutions. While household poverty is viewed as the main reason for child labor, we choose to focus on the phenomenon that parents who worked during own childhood are more likely to send their children to work. We also look at the effect of social norms on the parents' child labor decision and analyze both these effects on the supply of labor and equilibrium in the labor market. Finally, we suggest an explanation for the phenomenon of poor societies with similar income levels that differ significantly in literacy rates and propose policy improvements. JEL: D13 D64 D91 J22 Z10 Keywords: child labor, social norms, intergenerational transmission Date: 2021–12 URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14937&r=&r=soc [4]
4. What Makes a Classmate a Peer? Examining which peers matter in NYC elementary schools Horrace, William (Syracuse University); Jung, Hyunseok (University of Arkansas); Presler, Jonathan (Sinquefield Center for Applied Economic Research, Saint Louis University); Schwartz, Amy Ellen (Syracuse University) We identify and estimate the effects of student-level social spillovers on standardized test performance in New York City (NYC) elementary schools. We leverage student demographic data to construct within-classroom social networks based on shared student characteristics, such as a gender or ethnicity. Rather than aggregate shared characteristics into a single network matrix, we specify additively separate network matrices for each shared characteristic and estimate city-wide peer effects for each one. Conditional on sharing a classroom, we find that the most important student peer effects are shared ethnicity, gender, and primary language spoken at home. Identification of the model is discussed. JEL: C31 I21 Keywords: Peer effect; Network; Homophily; Education Date: 2021–10–01 URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:sluecr:2021_004&r=&r=soc [5]
5. Predicting trustworthiness across cultures: An experiment Adam Zylbersztejn (GATE Lyon Saint-Étienne - Groupe d'analyse et de théorie économique - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - Université de Lyon - UJM - Université Jean Monnet [Saint-Étienne] - UCBL - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 - Université de Lyon - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - ENS Lyon - École normale supérieure - Lyon); Zakaria Babutsidze (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (... - 2019) - COMUE UCA - COMUE Université Côte d'Azur (2015 - 2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Côte d'Azur, OFCE - Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques - Sciences Po - Sciences Po); Nobuyuki Hanaki (Osaka University [Osaka]) We contribute to the ongoing debate in the psychological literature on the role of thin slices of observable information in predicting others' social behavior, and its generalizability to cross-cultural interactions. We experimentally assess the degree to which subjects, drawn from culturally dierent populations (France and Japan), are able to predict strangers' trustworthiness based on a set of visual stimuli (mugshot pictures, neutral videos, loaded videos, all recorded in an additional French sample) under varying cultural distance to the target agent in the recording. Our main nding is that cultural distance is not detrimental for predicting trustworthiness in strangers, but that it may aect the perception of dierent components of communication in social interactions. Keywords: laboratory experiment,cross-cultural comparison,hidden action game,Trustworthiness,communication Date: 2021 URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03432600&r=&r=soc [6]
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