In this issue we feature 8 current papers on the theme of social capital:

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1. Satisfaction Guaranteed: When Moral Hazard meets Moral Preferences - James Andreoni
2. What Determines Citizen Trust: Evaluating the Impact of Campaigns Highlighting Government Reforms - Musharraf Cyan; Michael Price; Mark Rider
3. Pocketbook voting, social preferences, and expressive motives in referenda - Meya, Johannes; Poutvaara, Panu; Schwager, Robert
4. Collaborative networks and export intensity in family firms: a quantile regression approach - Raúl Serrano; Isabel Acero-Fraile; Natalia Dejo-Oricain
5. Altruistic and selfish motivations of charitable giving:Case of the hometown tax donation system in Japan - Eiji Yamamura; Yoshiro Tsutsui; Fumio Ohtake
6. Southern-Area Development Programme: How Communities Groups Function - Musharraf Cyan; Michael Price; Mark Rider
7. Impure Altruism and Other Donor Attraction Factors: A Study Based on a Database of Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) in the Philippines - Renato E. Reside, Jr.
8. Terrorism and the Media: The Effect of US Television Coverage on Al-Qaeda Attacks - Jetter, Michael

1. Satisfaction Guaranteed: When Moral Hazard meets Moral Preferences

   James Andreoni

 Theorists and policy analysts have convincingly argued that greater trust  makes a more efficient society by eliminating costly contracts or expensive  reputations. Concurrently, experiments suggest that reciprocity is a potent  substitute for law when compliance with contracts is imperfectly enforced.

 This paper examines these issues within the context of a common  trust-building contract device: satisfaction guaranteed. We find that  satisfaction guaranteed indeed builds trust and improves efficiency.

 Interestingly, sellers offering a guarantee are more trustworthy than those  who don't, even when honoring it is fully voluntary, but the guarantee only  elicits the trust of buyers when it has legal backing.

   JEL: C92 D02 D4 K2

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23352&r=soc

2. What Determines Citizen Trust: Evaluating the Impact of Campaigns Highlighting Government Reforms

   Musharraf Cyan (Department of Economics, Andrew Young School of Policy

    Studies, Georgia State University)

   Michael Price (Department of Economics, Andrew Young School of Policy

    Studies, Georgia State University)

   Mark Rider (Department of Economics, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies,

    Georgia State University)

 The role of trust on economic growth and the efficiency of large  organizations has been well documented in the literature. For example,  LaPorta et al., (1997, 1999) provide evidence linking trust and the success  of large organizations and the efficiency of government. A related body of  work has explored the link between trust and growth (Knack and Keefer, 1997)  and patterns of trade/investment flows amongst European nations (Guiseo,  Sapienza, and Zingales, 2009). Taken in its totality, this body of work shows  the central importance of trust on economic development and societal  well-being. Intuitively, trust provides a means to facilitate economic  activity as it reduces an important barrier to trade – the need to undertake  costly efforts to learn about the trustworthiness of others (Zak and Knack,  2001). Empirical results provide mixed evidence on effectiveness of our  messaging campaign. While the messages impact measures of trust, subjective  well-being and perceptions about the quality of service delivery in KPK,  there is no effect of the campaign on respondents in FATA. Importantly,  however, such effects are more pronounced amongst those who have been exposed  to conflict during the past year. Moreover, given prior work linking  political trust to an individual’s confidence in government institutions as  captured by perceptions of quality and performance (see, e.g., Hetherington,  2005; Newton, 2007; Hutchison and Johnson, 2015), the impact of our awareness  campaign on reported satisfaction with civil service delivery and perceptions  about the quality of the justice and governance systems is noteworthy and  provides a necessary first step in rebuilding overall trust in the state.

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper1713&r=soc

3. Pocketbook voting, social preferences, and expressive motives in referenda

   Meya, Johannes

   Poutvaara, Panu

   Schwager, Robert

 We develop and test a theory of voting and turnout decisions that integrates  self-interest, social preferences, and expressive motives. Our model implies  that if pocketbook benefits are relevant, voters either perceive their impact  on the outcome to be non-negligible, or expressive motivations do not play a  role in the decision on how to vote. Conversely, if own pocketbook benefits  do not explain voting, then voting is expressive. If the perceived  probability of being pivotal is non-negligible, social preferences and  expressive concerns are observationally equivalent. Our empirical analysis  studies collective choices which are analogous to decisions on local public  goods. We consider referenda among university students on whether to  collectively purchase deeply discounted flat rate tickets for public  transportation and cultural amenities. Individual us- age data allow  quantifying the monetary benefits associated with each ticket. As voters had  precise information on the individual costs and benefits, our setting  comprises a real-world laboratory of direct democracy. We find that monetary  benefits strongly influence participation and voting. However, social or  expressive motives, such as stated altruism, environmental concerns, and  paternalism, are decisive for a significant minority. Our results rule out  purely expressive voting and imply that a substantial share of the electorate  perceived their impact on the outcome to be non-negligible.

   Keywords: Pocketbook Voting,Social Preferences,Expressive Voting,Instrumental Voting,Public Goods,Altruism,Referendum

   JEL: D72 H41 D64

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cegedp:312&r=soc

4. Collaborative networks and export intensity in family firms: a quantile regression approach

   Raúl Serrano (University of Zaragoza)

   Isabel Acero-Fraile (University of Zaragoza)

   Natalia Dejo-Oricain (University of Zaragoza)  This paper examines if collaborative networks affect the export status and  intensity in family firms. We suggest that the network effect is more  relevant when the firm has low export intensity because when the firm is in  the first stages of internationalization, networks are very useful to provide  export resources and to solve common problems. However, this role becomes  less relevant when firms show higher export intensity. For the empirical  analysis, we use a dynamic Heckman-Probit model, using in the second stage a  quantile regression model.

   Keywords: Family Firms; Networks; Internationalization; Export Intensity; Quantile regression

   JEL: F15 M21 N74 Q13

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zar:wpaper:dt2017-04&r=soc

5. Altruistic and selfish motivations of charitable giving:Case of the hometown tax donation system in Japan

   Eiji Yamamura

   Yoshiro Tsutsui

   Fumio Ohtake

 In Japan’s hometown tax donation system, people can donate to municipalities  where they are not resident and in return receive reciprocal gifts from the  local governments of those municipalities. A large part of the donated amount  can be deducted from their income and residence taxes. This study examined  altruistic and selfish motivations in donating money to municipalities where  people are not resident through that donation system; we did so using panel  data of local governments for 2008–2015. We made the following key findings.

 (1) The Great East Japan earthquake increased the amount of money donated  through that system for local governments with disaster victims. We  considered that motivation altruistic. (2) A 1% increase in expenditure for  gifts to donors led to a 0.61% increase in donations. We considered that  motivation selfish. (3) Compared with donors not receiving gifts, providing  gifts to donors led to a reduction in altruistic donations by almost 300%.

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dpr:wpaper:1003&r=soc

6. Southern-Area Development Programme: How Communities Groups Function

   Musharraf Cyan (Department of Economics, Andrew Young School of Policy

    Studies, Georgia State University)

   Michael Price (Department of Economics, Andrew Young School of Policy

    Studies, Georgia State University)

   Mark Rider (Department of Economics, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies,

    Georgia State University)

 The nature and quality of institutions are important determinants of economic  growth. Yet, there is little consensus in the academic literature about  exactly how institutions should be designed; how to move from a system of  anachronistic or maladaptive institutions to a better set of institutions;  and whether and how foreign donors can assist in this process. One policy  that is often used by donors to encourage participatory democracy in  low-income countries is “community driven development” (CDD). The United  Nations defines community development as “a process where community members  come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common  problems.” Such institutions developed organically in the Anglo-Saxon world  to meet exigent circumstances. Of course, Great Britain and its former  colonies have a long history of participatory democracy and local government.

 One approach to the challenges facing the developing world is to foster such  institutions in conditions that may have no tradition of participatory  democracy or providing public goods through collective effort. As a result,  many important public goods may be underprovided or not provided at all.

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper1710&r=soc

7. Impure Altruism and Other Donor Attraction Factors: A Study Based on a Database of Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) in the Philippines

   Renato E. Reside, Jr. (School of Economics, University of the Philippines

    Diliman)

 This study uses panel data on a sample of non-government organizations (NGOs)  to estimate the factors that motivate donors to contribute to them. The  results of empirical estimation suggest that a mix of conventional and tax  factors influence donors. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that  donors are not totally altruistic and are motivated by private benefits from  donating. There is strong evidence that the private benefits come more from  tax concessions from the act of donating. Hence, tax planning and arbitrage  motives, more than “warm glow” factors influence donor contributions.

   Keywords: Nonprofit corporations; donations; altruism

   JEL: C80 D64 H26

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:phs:dpaper:201704&r=soc

8. Terrorism and the Media: The Effect of US Television Coverage on Al-Qaeda

    Attacks

   Jetter, Michael (University of Western Australia)  Can media coverage of a terrorist organization encourage their execution of  further attacks? This paper analyzes the day-to-day news coverage of Al-Qaeda  on US television since 9/11 and the group's terrorist strikes. To isolate  causality, I use disaster deaths worldwide as an exogenous variation that  crowds out Al-Qaeda coverage in an instrumental variable framework. The  results suggest a positive and statistically powerful effect of CNN, NBC,  CBS, and Fox News coverage on subsequent Al-Qaeda attacks. This result is  robust to a battery of alternative estimations, extensions, and placebo  regressions. One minute of Al-Qaeda coverage in a 30-minute news segment  causes approximately one attack in the upcoming week, equivalent to 4.9  casualties, on average.

   Keywords: Al-Qaeda, media attention, media effects, terrorism, 9/11

   JEL: C26 D74 F52 L82

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10708&r=soc

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