In this issue we feature 11 current papers on the theme of social capital:

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In this issue we have:

1. Gender, Social Networks And Performance - Ilse Lindenlaub; Anja Prummer;
2. Female Genital Mutilation and Migration in Mali: Do Migrants Transfer Social Norms? Idrissa Diabata; Sandrine Mesplé-Somps;
3. Measuring Women's Empowerment: lessons to better understand domestic violence - Diana Lopez-Avila;
4. Information Acquisition and Exchange in Social Networks - Sanjeev Goyal; Stephanie Rosenkranz; Utz Weitze; Vincent Buskens;
5. Network Cognition - Roberta Dessi; Edoardo Gallo; Sanjeev Goyal;
6. Trading in Networks: Theory and Experiments - Syngjoo Choi; Andrea Galeotti; Sanjeev Goyal;
7. Institutions and the Preservation of Cultural Traits - Anja Prummer; Jan-Peter Siedlarek;
8. The Sensitive Nature of Social Trust to Intelligence - Kodila-Tedika, Oasis; Asongu, Simplice; Azia-Dimbu, Florentin;
9. Liberation Technology: Mobile Phones and Political Mobilization in Africa - Marco Manacorda; Andrea Tesei;
10. Politics in the Family: Nepotism and the Hiring Decisions of Italian Firms - Gagliarducci, Stefano; Manacorda, Marco;
11. Corruption, Norm Violation and Decay in Social Capital - Banerjee, Ritwik;

 1. Gender, Social Networks And Performance

    Ilse Lindenlaub

    Anja Prummer

 This paper documents gender differences in social ties and develops a theory  that links them to disparities in men’s and women’s labor market performance.

 Men’s networks lead to better access to information, women’s to higher peer  pressure. Both affect effort in a model of teams, each beneficial in  different environments. We find that information is particularly valuable  under high uncertainty, whereas peer pressure is more valuable in the  opposite case. We therefore expect men to outperform women in jobs that are  characterized by high earnings uncertainty, such as the financial sector or  film industry – in line with the evidence rationale.

    Keywords: Networks, Peer Pressure, Gender, Labor Market Outcomes

    JEL: D85 Z13 J16

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:1461&r=soc

 2. Female Genital Mutilation and Migration in Mali: Do Migrants Transfer Social Norms?

    Idrissa Diabata (INSTAT, Mali)

    Sandrine Mesplé-Somps (IRD)

 In this paper, we investigate how powerful a mechanism migration is in the  transmission of social norms, taking Mali and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)  as a case study. Mali has a strong FGM culture and a long-standing history of  migration. We use an original household-level database coupled with census  data to analyze the extent to which girls living in villages with high rates  of return migrants are less prone to FGM. Malians migrate predominantly to  other African countries where female circumcision is uncommon (e.g. Côte d’Ivoire) and to countries where FGM is totally banned (France and other  developed countries) and where anti-FGM information campaigns frequently  target African migrants. Taking a two-step instrumental variable approach to  control for the endogeneity of migration decisions, we show that return  migrants have a negative and significant influence on FGM. We also show that  adults living in villages with return migrants are more in favor of  legislation against FGM.

    Keywords: Mali

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:cmgdev:1501e&r=soc

 3. Measuring Women's Empowerment: lessons to better understand domestic violence

     Diana Lopez-Avila (PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - ENS Paris -

     École normale supérieure - Paris - EHESS - École des hautes études en

     sciences sociales - Institut national de la recherche agronomique (INRA) -

     École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche

     Scientifique, EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of

     Economics)

 This paper aims at shedding light on the relationship between women's  empowerment and domestic violence. For this, we explore different ways to  measure women's empowerment and domestic violence, and analyze whether the  relation depends on the definitions used. We take advantage of a rich data  set collected in rural Colombia, including several measures of self-esteem,  disagreement towards domestic violence, participation in household decisions  and social capital; and analyze the relationship with both aggressive and  controlling ways of domestic violence. The results indicate that the  different measures of women's empowerment help explain much better the  aggressive ways of domestic violence than the controlling ones. Our results  show a positive correlation between women's empowerment and domestic  violence. This goes in line with the theories that argue that men use  violence as a way to leverage their power within the household. Among the  different latent measures of women's empowerment we used, we found that  social capital and self-esteem are significantly correlated with aggressive  domestic violence. We do not find that more common proxies, such as women's  participation in household decisions, are significantly correlated to  domestic violence.

    Keywords: Gender,Domestic Violence,Household bargaining models,Social

     Capital,D13, I15, J12, J16, O12

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-01294565&r=soc

 4. Information Acquisition and Exchange in Social Networks

    Sanjeev Goyal

    Stephanie Rosenkranz

    Utz Weitze

    Vincent Buskens

 A central feature of social networks is information sharing. The Internet and  related computing technologies define the relative costs of private  information acquisition and forming links with others. This paper presents an  experiment on the effects of changing costs.We find that a decline in  relative costs of linking makes private investments more dispersed and gives  rise to denser social networks. Aggregate investment falls, but individuals  access to investment remains stable, due to increased networking. The overall  effect is a significant increase in individual utility and aggregate welfare.

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:1566&r=soc

 5. Network Cognition

    Roberta Dessi

    Edoardo Gallo

    Sanjeev Goyal

 We study individual ability to memorize and recall information about  friendship networks using a combination of experiments and survey-based data.

 In the experiment subjects are shown a network, in which their location is  exogenously assigned, and they are then asked questions about the network  after it disappears. We find that subjects exhibit three main cognitive

 biases: (i) they underestimate the mean degree compared to the actual  network; (ii) they overestimate the number of rare degrees; (iii) they  underestimate the number of frequent degrees. We then analyse survey data  from two `real' friendship networks from a Silicon Valley firm and from a  University Research Center. We find, somewhat remarkably, that individuals in  these real networks also exhibit these biases. The experiments yield three

 further: findings: (iv) network cognition is a affected by the subject's  location, (v) the accuracy of network cognition varies with the nature of the  network, and (vi) network cognition has a significant effect on economic  decisions.

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:1462&r=soc

 6. Trading in Networks: Theory and Experiments

    Syngjoo Choi

    Andrea Galeotti

    Sanjeev Goyal

 We propose a model of posted prices in networks. The model maps traditional  concepts of market power, competition and double marginalization into  networks, allowing for the study of pricing in complex structures of  intermediation such as supply chains, transportation and communication  networks and financial brokerage. We provide a complete characterization of  equilibrium prices. Our experiments complement our theoretical work and point  to node criticality as an organizing principle for understanding pricing,  efficiency and the division of surplus in networked markets.

    Keywords: Intermediation, competition, market power, double

     marginalization.

    JEL: C70 C71 C91 C92 D40

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:1457&r=soc

 7. Institutions and the Preservation of Cultural Traits

    Anja Prummer

    Jan-Peter Siedlarek

 We offer a novel explanation for why some immigrant groups and minorities  have persistent, distinctive cultural traits – the presence of a rigid  institution. Such an institution is necessary for communities to not fully  assimilate to the mainstream society. We distinguish between different types  of institutions, such as churches, foreign-language media or ethnic business  associations and ask what level of cultural distinction these institutions  prefer. Any type of institution can have incentives to be extreme and select  maximal cultural distinction from the mainstream society. If institutions  choose positive cultural distinction, without being extremist, then a  decrease in discrimination leads to reduced assimilation.

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:1465&r=soc

 8. The Sensitive Nature of Social Trust to Intelligence

    Kodila-Tedika, Oasis

    Asongu, Simplice

    Azia-Dimbu, Florentin

 This study investigates the relationship between social trust and  intelligence. The extreme bound analysis of Levine and Renelt is employed to  directly assess the strength of the nexus. The findings confirm the positive  and robust nexus between social trust and intelligence. We have contributed  to the literature by confirming that the previously established positive  linkage between intelligence and trust is not statistically fragile. In fact  the nexus withstands further empirical scrutiny with more robust empirical  strategies.

    Keywords: Trust; Intelligence; Human Capital; Extreme Bound Analysis

    JEL: G20 I20 I29 J24 P48 Z13

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:70523&r=soc

 9. Liberation Technology: Mobile Phones and Political Mobilization in Africa

    Marco Manacorda (Queen Mary University of London, CEP (LSE), CEPR & IZA)

    Andrea Tesei (Queen Mary University of London & CEP (LSE);)  Can digital information and communication technology (ICT) foster mass  political mobilization? We use a novel geo-referenced dataset for the entire  African continent between 1998 and 2012 on the coverage of mobile phone  signal together with geo-referenced data from multiple sources on the  occurrence of protests and on individual participation in protests to bring  this argument to empirical scrutiny. We find that mobile phones are  instrumental to mass mobilization during economic downturns, when reasons for  grievance emerge and the cost of participation falls. Estimated effects are  if anything larger once we use an instrumental variable approach that relies  on differential trends in coverage across areas with different incidence of  lightning strikes. The results are in line with insights from a network model  with imperfect information and strategic complementarities in protest  provision. Mobile phones make individuals more responsive to both changes in  economic conditions - a mechanism that we ascribe to enhanced information -  and to their neighbors' participation - a mechanism that we ascribe to  enhanced coordination. Empirically both effects are at play, highlighting the  channels through which digital ICT can alleviate the collective action  problem.

    Keywords: Mobile phones, Collective action, Africa, Geo-referenced data

    JEL: D70 O55 L96

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qmw:qmwecw:wp785&r=soc

10. Politics in the Family: Nepotism and the Hiring Decisions of Italian Firms

    Gagliarducci, Stefano (University of Rome Tor Vergata)

    Manacorda, Marco (Queen Mary, University of London)  In this paper we investigate the effect of family connections to politicians  on individuals' labor market outcomes. We combine data for Italy over almost  three decades from longitudinal social security records on a random sample of  around 1 million private sector employees with the universe of around 500,000  individuals ever holding political office, and we exploit information  available in both datasets on a substring of each individual's last name and  municipality of birth in order to identify family ties. Using a diff-in-diff  analysis that follows individuals as their family members enter and leave  office, and correcting for the measurement error induced by our fuzzy  matching method, we estimate that the monetary return to having a politician  in the family is around 3.5 percent worth of private sector earnings and that  each politician is able to extract rents for his family worth between one  fourth and one full private sector job per year. The effect of nepotism is  long lasting, extending well beyond the period in office. Consistent with the  view that this is a technology of rent appropriation on the part of  politicians, the effect increases with politicians' clout and with the  resources available in the administration where they serve.

    Keywords: Nepotism, family connections, politics, rent appropriation

    JEL: D72 D73 H72 J24 J30 M51

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9841&r=soc

11. Corruption, Norm Violation and Decay in Social Capital

    Banerjee, Ritwik (Indian Institute of Management)  The paper studies the link between corruption and social capital (measured as  trust), using data from a lab experiment. Subjects play either a harassment  bribery game or a strategically identical but differently framed ultimatum  game, followed by a trust game. In a second experiment, we elicit social  appropriateness norm of actions in the bribery game and the ultimatum game  treatments. Our experimental design allows us to examine whether subjects,  who have been asked to pay a bribe, are less likely to trust than those in an  isomorphic role in the ultimatum game. We also uncover the underlying  mechanism behind any such behavioral spillover. Results suggest that a) there  is a negative spillover effect of corruption on trust and the effect  increases with decrease in social appropriateness norm of the bribe demand;

 b) lower trust in the bribery game treatment is explained by lower expected  return on trust; c) surprisingly, for both the bribery and the ultimatum game  treatments, social appropriateness norm violation engenders the decay in  trust through its adverse effect on belief about trustworthiness.

    Keywords: corruption, social capital, social norm, trust games

    JEL: C91 C92 D03

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9859&r=soc

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