In this issue we feature 9 current papers on the theme of social capital:

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In this issue we have:

1. Online social networks and trust - Fabio Sabatini; Francesco Sarracino

2. Trust and Trustworthiness of Immigrants and Native-Born Americans - James C. Cox; Wafa Hakim Orman

3. Gender Differences in the Distribution of Total Work-Time of Latin-American Families: The Importance of Social Norms -    Campaña, Juan Carlos; Gimenez-Nadal, J. Ignacio; Molina, José Alberto

4. Neighborhood Effects in Education - Del Bello, Carlo L.; Patacchini, Eleonora; Zenou, Yves

5. Linking Team Leaders’ Human & Social Capital to their Team Members’ Career Advancement - Malhotra, Pearl; Singh, Manjari

6. Are Results of Social- and Self-Image Concerns in Voluntary Contributions Game Similar?  Martin Daniel Siyaranamual

7. Can Farmers Create Efficient Information Networks? Experimental Evidence from Rural India - A. Stefano Caria; Marcel Fafchamps

8. Becoming “We” Instead of “I”, Identity Management and Incentives in the Workplace - Jocelyn Donze; Trude Gunnes

9. Political Connections and Firm Value: Evidence from the Regression Discontinuity Design of Close Gubernatorial Elections - Do, Quoc-Anh; Lee, Yen-Teik; Nguyen, Bang Dang

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1. Online social networks and trust

   Fabio Sabatini

   Francesco Sarracino

 We explore how participation in social networking sites (SNS) such as  Facebook and Twitter affects the most economically relevant aspect of social  capital, trust. We use measures of trust in strangers (or social trust),  trust in neighbours and trust in the police. We address endogeneity in the  use of SNS by exploiting the variation in the availability of broadband for  high-speed Internet, which relates to technological characteristics of the

 pre- existing voice telecommunication infrastructures. We find that all the  proxies of trust significantly decrease with participation in online  networks. We discuss several interpretations of the results in light of the  specific features of Internet-mediated social interaction.

   Keywords: Internet; broadband; online networks; social networking sites;

    Facebook; trust; social capital; hate speech.

   JEL: C36 D85 O33 Z1

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eei:rpaper:eeri_rp_2015_04&r=soc

2. Trust and Trustworthiness of Immigrants and Native-Born Americans

   James C. Cox

   Wafa Hakim Orman

 Trust and trustworthiness are crucial to amelioration of social dilemmas.

 Distrust and malevolence aggravate social dilemmas. We use an experimental  moonlighting game with a sample of the U.S. population, oversampling  immigrants, to observe interactions between immigrants and native-born  Americans in a social dilemma situation that can elicit both benevolent and  malevolent actions. We survey participants in order to relate outcomes in the  moonlighting game to demographic characteristics and traditional,  survey-based measures of trust and trustworthiness and show that they are  strongly correlated. Overall, we find that immigrants are as trusting as  native-born U.S. citizens when they interact with native-born citizens but do  not trust other immigrants. Immigrants appear to be less trustworthy overall  but this finding disappears when we control for demographic variables. Women  and older people are less likely to trust but no more or less trustworthy.

 Highly religious immigrants are less trusting and less trustworthy than both  other immigrants and native-born Americans.

   Keywords: experiment, trust, trustworthiness, religiosity, immigrants,

    native-born

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:exc:wpaper:2015-03&r=soc

3. Gender Differences in the Distribution of Total Work-Time of Latin-American

    Families: The Importance of Social Norms

   Campaña, Juan Carlos (University of Zaragoza)

   Gimenez-Nadal, J. Ignacio (University of Zaragoza)

   Molina, José Alberto (University of Zaragoza)  We analyze differences by gender in the time dedicated to total work (paid  and unpaid) by families in Latin America, with particular attention to the  effect of social norms. To this end, we use survey data on time use in Mexico  (2009), Peru (2010), Ecuador (2012) and Colombia (2012), to estimate  differential equations through OLS. Our results reveal differences between  countries in terms of the gender distribution of total work (paid work plus  unpaid work), with Colombia and Peru being more equitable. These two  countries could be approaching a situation of "iso-work", or equality of  work, in the sense that men and women spend similar amounts of time in total  work. When considering the social norms that explain gender differences in  the time spent in total work, we use data from the last wave (2010-2014) of  the World Values Survey (WVS). Our results indicate that the more egalitarian  countries exhibit the highest levels of equality in the distribution of work.

 It is important to know how men and women from these four countries  distribute their time in total work, in order to understand why there are  clear differences by gender.

   Keywords: total work, Latin America, differences by gender, social norms

   JEL: D13 J22 J13 J16

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8933&r=soc

4. Neighborhood Effects in Education

   Del Bello, Carlo L. (Paris School of Economics)

   Patacchini, Eleonora (Cornell University)

   Zenou, Yves (Stockholm University)

 Using unique geo-coded information on the residential address of a  representative sample of American adolescents and their friends, we revisit  the importance of geographical proximity in shaping education outcomes. Our  findings reveal no evidence of residential neighborhood effects. Social  proximity, as measured by similarity in religion, race and family income as  well as in unobserved characteristics, appears to play a major role in  facilitating peer influence. Our empirical strategy is able to control for  the endogeneity of both social network and location choices.

   Keywords: neighborhood effects, social networks, link formation, education

   JEL: C21 Z13

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8956&r=soc

5. Linking Team Leaders’ Human & Social Capital to their Team Members’ Career

    Advancement

   Malhotra, Pearl

   Singh, Manjari

 This paper looks at a conceptual model depicting the impact of high  performing Team Leaders (TL) on their team members’ career advancement.

 Certain inherent factors present in high performing TLs are not usually  linked to either the development or the career advancement of the team  members; however their presence ensures that there is a positive impact. For  this study those factors were classified into two main categories – a) Human  Capital and b) Social capital. Using Social Learning Theory, one can say that  high performing TLs provide modelling stimuli based on live experiences to  their team members. Social modelling and learning in this context can further  be understood using Social Network Theory. This impact is positively  moderated by the strength of the TL-team member dyads, which can be  theoretically examined through Leader-Membership exchange and supervisory  support.

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iim:iimawp:13333&r=soc

6. Are Results of Social- and Self-Image Concerns in Voluntary Contributions

    Game Similar?

   Martin Daniel Siyaranamual (Department of Economics, Padjadjaran University)  Social interactions may encourage the cooperative behaviours by triggering  either self-image concerns (when one sees others’ decisions without being

 seen) or social-image concerns (when one’s decision is seen by others). A  laboratory experiment is designed to compare these two concerns directly,  using a four-players finitely repeated public goods experiment on two  directed star networks, self-image and social-image networks. The comparison  of the players voluntary contributions in both types of networks reveals that  their contributing behaviours are statistically indistinguishable. However,  the players who belong to the self-image network are more willing to conform  with the group behaviours, meaning that they will increase (reduce) the  contributions if theirs are below (above) their groups average. Furthermore,  I also find evidence that the contributing behaviours are more stable in the  self-image networks than in the social-image network.

   Keywords: Social-image; Self-image; Directed network; Public good experiment

   JEL: C92 D19 H41 Z13

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unp:wpaper:201501&r=soc

7. Can Farmers Create Efficient Information Networks? Experimental Evidence

    from Rural India

   A. Stefano Caria

   Marcel Fafchamps

 We run an artefactual field experiment in rural India which tests whether  farmers can create efficient networks in a repeated link formation game, and  whether group categorization results in homophily and loss of network  efficiency. We find that the efficiency of the networks formed in the  experiment is significantly lower than the efficiency which could be achieved  under selfish, rational play. Many individual decisions are consistent with  selfish rationality and with a concern for overall welfare, but the tendency  to link with the ‘most popular’ farmer in the network causes large efficiency  losses. When information about group membership is disclosed, social networks  become more homophilous, but not significantly less efficient. Networks play  an important role in the diffusion of innovations in developing countries. If  they are inefficiently structured, there is scope for development policies  that support diffusion.

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2015-07&r=soc

8. Becoming “We” Instead of “I”, Identity Management and Incentives in the

    Workplace.

   Jocelyn Donze

   Trude Gunnes

 In this article, we propose to view the firm as a locus of socialization in  which employees with heterogeneous work attitudes can be motivated and  coordinated through adherence to a social ideal of effort. We develop an  agency model in which employees have both a personal and a social ideal of  effort. The firm does not observe the personal ideals, but can make its  workforce more sensitive to the social ideal by fostering interaction in the  workplace. We show that there are two reasons why the firm invests in social  bonding. First, it reinforces the effectiveness of monetary incentives.

 Second, strengthening the social ideal reduces the adverse selection problem  and the need to devise distorted payment schemes. We also show that the firm  allocates more time to social interaction when personal ideals of effort are  low or heterogeneous.

   Keywords: agency theory, social interaction, social norms, norm regulation.

   JEL: D2 D8 J3 M5

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2015-09&r=soc

9. Political Connections and Firm Value: Evidence from the Regression

    Discontinuity Design of Close Gubernatorial Elections

   Do, Quoc-Anh

   Lee, Yen-Teik

   Nguyen, Bang Dang

 Using the regression discontinuity design of close gubernatorial elections in  the U.S., we identify a significant and positive impact of the social  networks of corporate directors and politicians on firm value. Firms  connected to elected governors increase their value by 3.89%. Political  connections are more valuable for firms connected to winning challengers, for  smaller and financially dependent firms, in more corrupt states, in states of  connected firms’ headquarters and operations, and in closer, smaller, and  active networks. Post-election, firms connected to the winner receive  significantly more state procurement contracts and invest more than do firms  connected to the loser.

   Keywords: close gubernatorial election; corruption; firm value; political

    connection; procurement; regression discontinuity design; social networks

   JEL: D72 D73 G28 G30 G34 G38 H57

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10526&r=soc

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