Date:

2014-06

By:

Oliver Falck
Robert Gold
Stephan Heblich

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:uobdis:14/642&r=soc

This paper analyses the effects on voting behavior of information disseminated over the Internet. We address endogeneity in Internet availability by exploiting regional and technological peculiarities of the preexisting voice telephony network that hindered the roll-out of fixed-line infrastructure for high-speed Internet. We find negative effects of Internet availability on voter turnout, which we relate to a crowding-out of TV consumption and increased entertainment consumption. We find no evidence that the Internet systematically benefits specific parties, suggesting ideological self-segregation in online information consumption. Robustness tests, including placebo estimations from the pre-Internet period, support a causal interpretation of our results.

Keywords:

Elections, Mass Media, Internet.

JEL:

D72 L82 L86

Date:

2014-04

By:

Manuel Förster (CES, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France, and CORE, University of Louvain Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium)
Ana Mauleon (CEREC, Saint-Louis University, Brussels, CORE, University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium)
Vincent J. Vannetelbosch (CORE, University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, CEREC, Saint-Louis University, Brussels, Belgium)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2014.50&r=soc

We investigate the role of manipulation in a model of opinion formation. Agents repeatedly communicate with their neighbors in the social network, can exert effort to manipulate the trust of others, and update their opinions about some common issue by taking weighted averages of neighbors' opinions. The incentives to manipulate are given by the agents' preferences. We show that manipulation can modify the trust structure and lead to a connected society. Manipulation fosters opinion leadership, but the manipulated agent may even gain influence on the long-run opinions. Finally, we investigate the tension between information aggregation and spread of misinformation.

Keywords:

Social networks, Trust, Manipulation, Opinion leadership, Consensus, Wisdom of Crowds

JEL:

D83 D85 Z13

Date:

2014-04

By:

Sanjeev Goyal (Faculty of Economics and Christ's College, University of Cambridge)
Stephanie Rosenkranz (Department of Economics, Utrecht University)
Utz Weitzel (Department of Economics, Radboud University Nijmegen)
Vincent Buskens (Department of Sociology, Utrecht University)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2014.49&r=soc

The explosion in online social networks motivates an enquiry into their structure and their welfare effects. A central feature of these networks is information sharing: online social networks lower the cost of getting information from others. These lower costs affect the attractiveness of individual search vis-a-vis a reliance on social networks. The paper reports the findings of an experiment on these effects. Our experiment shows that online networks can have large effects. Information acquisition is more dispersed and it is accompanied by denser social networks. Aggregate investment in information acquisition falls, but information available to individuals remains stable, due to increased networking. The overall effect is a significant increase in individual utility and aggregate welfare.

Keywords:

Social networks

JEL:

D83 D85

Date:

2014

By:

Luis Aranda (Department of Economics, University Of Venice Cà Foscari)
Martin Siyaranamual (Department of Economics, University Of Venice Cà Foscari)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ven:wpaper:2014:06&r=soc

This study investigates the link between cognitive abilities and civic engagement of older Europeans (aged 50+), using waves two and three of the SHARE dataset. An instrumental variable approach is employed in an attempt to disentangle possible endogeneity issues arising between cognition and pro-social behaviors. In so doing, cognitive abilities are instrumented with the number of books in the respondent’s place of residence during childhood. The results advocate for the existence of a causal relationship running from cognition in old age to community engagement. Though contradicting standard theoretical predictions, this empirical finding is in line with mainline experimental results showing how participants with higher cognitive abilities tend to be less risk averse, and thus more willing to opt for a payoff-dominant action in a stag hunt game context more often.

Keywords:

Cognitive ability; civic engagement; instrumental variables; risk aversion; we-rationality.

JEL:

D03 D64 D71

Date:

2014-06

By:

A. Mantovani
O. Tarola
C. Vergari

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp950&r=soc

We analyse how market competition in a vertically differentiated polluting industry is affected by product variants that comply at different levels with "green" social norms. A green consumption behaviour is considered as a byword of good citizenship. Consumer preferences depend on a combination of hedonic quality and compliance with the norms. Assuming that the high hedonic quality variant complies less with the norms than the low hedonic quality one, we characterize the different equilibrium configurations, depending on the perceived intensity of such norms. Then, we focus on the role that institutions may have in using these norms to reduce pollution emissions.

JEL:

D62 L13

Date:

2014

By:

Roberto Foa (Harvard University)
Anna Nemirovskaya (National Research University Higher School of Economics)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:13/ps/2014&r=soc

How is state capacity consolidated? While there is a growing literature on state formation and the long-term rise of state capacity, this literature typically deals with differences between countries, neglecting the fact that state formation also occurs differentially within a country over time. This article examines legacies of state formation spatially, by looking at variation within "frontier" states - countries which in recent centuries have extended rule over new territories adjacent to their core regions. Frontier zones within such countries are found to have ongoing lower levels of public order and deficient public goods provision. Several theories are examined to explain this discrepancy, including internal resettlement, costs of monitoring and enforcement, and the relationship between settlers and the indigenous population. It is argued that the formation of strong social institutions among settlers leads to resistance to attempts to impose governance over frontier regions, and to `select for' lower fiscal capacity and lower provision of public goods.

Keywords:

State formation, settlement patterns, historical institutionalism, frontier thesis, public goods, rule of law, governance.

JEL:

Z13 N90 R23 H41

Date:

2014

By:

Jérôme Hergueux (IEP Paris - Sciences Po Paris - Institut d'études politiques de Paris - Institut d'Études Politiques [IEP] - Paris - PRES Sorbonne Paris Cité - Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques [FNSP])
Nicolas Jacquemet (EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics - Ecole d'Économie de Paris, BETA - Bureau d'économie théorique et appliquée - CNRS : UMR7522 - Université de Strasbourg - Université Nancy II)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:pseose:halshs-00984211&r=soc

Internet is a very attractive technology for the implementation of experiments, both in order to obtain larger and more diverse samples and as a field of economic research in its own right. This paper reports on an experiment performed both online and in the laboratory, designed to strengthen the internal validity of decisions elicited over the Internet. We use the same subject pool, the same monetary stakes and the same decision interface, and control the assignment of subjects between the Internet and a traditional university laboratory. We apply the comparison to the elicitation of social preferences in a Public Good game, a dictator game, an ultimatum bargaining game and a trust game, coupled with an elicitation of risk aversion. This comparison concludes in favor of the reliability of behaviors elicited through the Internet. We moreover find a strong overall parallelism in the preferences elicited in the two settings. The paper also reports some quantitative differences in the point estimates, which always go in the direction of more other-regarding decisions from online subjects. This observation challenges either the predictions of social distance theory or the generally assumed increased social distance in internet interactions.

Keywords:

Social experiment ; Field experiment ; Internet Methodology ; Randomized assignment

Date:

2014-05

By:

Berno Buechel (Department of Economics, University of Hamburg)
Tim Hellmann (Institute of Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University)
Stefan Kölßner (Statistics and Econometrics, Saarland University)

URL:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2014.51&r=soc

We study a dynamic model of opinion formation in social networks. In our model, boundedly rational agents update opinions by averaging over their neighbors' expressed opinions, but may misrepresent their own opinion by conforming or counter-conforming with their neighbors. We show that an agent's social influence on the long-run group opinion is increasing in network centrality and decreasing in conformity. Concerning efficiency of information aggregation or “wisdom" of the society, it turns out that misrepresentation of opinions need not undermine wisdom, but may even enhance it. Given the network, we provide the optimal distribution of conformity levels in the society and show which agents should be more conforming in order to increase wisdom.

Keywords:

Opinion Leadership, Wisdom Of Crowds, Consensus, Social Networks, Conformity, Eigenvector Centrality

JEL:

C72 D83 D85 Z13