In this issue we feature 13 current papers on the theme of social capital:

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1. Understanding Cultural Persistence and Change - Paola Giuliano; Nathan Nunn
2. The Status-Enhancing Power of Sociability - Alessandro Bucciol; Simona Cicognani; Luca Zarri
3. Conformism, Social Norms and the Dynamics of Assimilation - Olcina, Gonzalo; Panebianco, Fabrizio; Zenou, Yves
4. Too Lucky to Be True: Fairness Views under the Shadow of Cheating - Bortolotti, Stefania; Soraperra, Ivan; Sutter, Matthias; Zoller, Claudia
5. Is electoral punishment important for democracy? The role of social capital and religious resources - Ambra, Poggi;
6. The formation of prosociality: Causal evidence on the role of social environment - Kosse, Fabian; Deckers, Thomas; Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah; Falk, Armin
7. Discrimination through "Versioning" with Advertising in Random Networks - Antonio Jiménez-Martínez; Óscar González-Guerra
8. Who Are Nonvoters? Lyn Ragsdale; Jerrold G. Rusk
9. Measuring Social Connectedness - Michael Bailey; Ruiqing (Rachel) Cao; Theresa Kuchler; Johannes Stroebel; Arlene Wong
10. On Efficient Information Aggregation Networks - Antonio Jiménez-Martínez
11. The degree measure as utility function over positions in networks - Rene J.R. van den Brink; Agnieszka Rusinowska
12. Education and tax morale - Rodríguez Justicia, David
13.  Self-control and crime revisited: Disentangling the effect of self-control on risk taking and antisocial behavior - Friehe, Tim; Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah

 1. Understanding Cultural Persistence and Change

    Paola Giuliano

    Nathan Nunn

 When does culture persist and when does it change? We examine a determinant  that has been put forth in the anthropology literature: the variability of  the environment from one generation to the next. A prediction, which emerges  from a class of existing models from evolutionary anthropology, is that  following the customs of the previous generation is relatively more  beneficial in stable environments where the culture that has evolved up to  the previous generation is more likely to be relevant for the subsequent  generation. We test this hypothesis by measuring the variability of average  temperature across 20-year generations from 500–1900. Looking across  countries, ethnic groups, and the descendants of immigrants, we find that  populations with ancestors who lived in environments with more stability from  one generation to the next place a greater importance in maintaining  tradition today. These populations also exhibit more persistence in their  traditions over time.

    JEL: N10 Q54 Z1

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23617&r=soc

 2. The Status-Enhancing Power of Sociability

    Alessandro Bucciol (Department of Economics, University of Verona, Italy)

    Simona Cicognani (Department of Economics, University of Verona, Italy;

     The Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis)

    Luca Zarri (Department of Economics, University of Verona, Italy)  This paper shows that individuals' sociability plays an important role in  explaining where individuals locate themselves in the social ladder, also  when their objective location within society (measured through their income,  wealth and education) is considered. Using data from the US Health and  Retirement Study, we assess individuals' sociability through the number and  quality of friendships and attitude towards others (support, social cohesion,  reciprocity, cynical hostility, loneliness and discrimination). We find  subjective social status to correlate positively with social contact,  reciprocity and social cohesion. Individuals with higher life satisfaction  seem disconnected from objective elements when subjectively evaluating their  social status.

    Keywords: Subjective social status, Objectively measured social status, Sociability, Personality traits

    JEL: I31 Z13

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rim:rimwps:17-15&r=soc

 3. Conformism, Social Norms and the Dynamics of Assimilation

    Olcina, Gonzalo

    Panebianco, Fabrizio

    Zenou, Yves

 We consider a model where each individual (or ethnic minority) is embedded in  a network of relationships and decides whether or not she wants to be  assimilated to the majority norm. Each individual wants her behavior to agree  with her personal ideal action or norm but also wants her behavior to be as  close as possible to the average assimilation behavior of her peers. We show  that there is always convergence to a steady-state and characterize it. We  also show that different assimilation norms may emerge in steady state  depending on the structure of the network. We then consider an optimal  tax/subsidy policy which aim is to reach a certain level of assimilation in  the population. We believe that our model sheds light on how the pressure  from peers, communities and families affect the long-run assimilation  decisions of ethnic minorities.

    Keywords: Assimilation; networks; peer pressure.; Social norms

    JEL: D83 D85 J15 Z13

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12166&r=soc

 4. Too Lucky to Be True: Fairness Views under the Shadow of Cheating

    Bortolotti, Stefania (University of Cologne)

    Soraperra, Ivan (University of Amsterdam)

    Sutter, Matthias (University of Cologne)

    Zoller, Claudia (University of Cologne)  The steady increase in inequality over the past decades has revived a lively  debate about what can be considered a fair distribution of income. Public  support for the extent of redistribution typically depends on the perceived  causes of income inequality, such as differences in effort, luck, or  opportunities. We study how fairness views and the extent of redistribution  are affected by a hitherto over-looked, but relevant factor: immoral  self-serving behavior that can lead to increased inequality. We focus on  situations in which the rich have potentially acquired their fortunes by  means of cheating. In an experiment, we let third parties redistribute  resources between two stakeholders who could earn money either by choosing a  safe amount or by engaging in a risky, but potentially more profitable,  in-vestment. In one treatment, the outcome of the risky investment is  determined by a random move, while in another treatment stakeholders can  cheat to obtain the more profitable outcome. Although third parties cannot  verify cheating, we find that the mere suspicion of cheating changes fairness  views of third parties considerably and leads to a strong polarization. When  cheating opportunities are pre-sent, the share of subjects redistributing  money from rich to poor stakeholders triples and becomes as large as the  fraction of libertarians – i.e., participants who never redistribute. Without  cheating opportunities, libertarian fairness views dominate, while  egalitarian views are much less prevalent. These results indicate that  fairness views and attitudes towards redistribution change significantly when  people believe that income inequality is the result of cheating by the rich.

    Keywords: fairness views, redistribution, unethical behavior, inequality, experiment

    JEL: C91 D63 D81 H26

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10877&r=soc

 5. Is electoral punishment important for democracy? The role of social capital and religious resources

    Ambra, Poggi

 Electoral punishment is the main instrument that citizens have to keep  government accountable, answerable and accessible to the people they serve.

 The aim of this paper is to empirically investigate whether individual social  resources - social capital and religious resources - may enhance the  probability that individuals value electoral punishment important for  democracy. We use data from the 2012 European Social Survey Multilevel Data  and a multilevelapproach. Our findings lend support to the view that social  resources matter in determining the importance of electoral punishment, even  if the importance of each resource varies across countries. Social capital  has a complex effect on the importance of electoral punishment: trust reduces  the probability that individuals value electoral punishment, while social  participation increases it. Religious resources result negatively correlated  with the importance of electoral punishment suggesting that loyalty versus  religious values and traditions imply unconditional citizens’ support for  government. Finally, some religions seem to have a specific role in enhancing  the importance of electoral punishment confirming an active role of religious  values and authorities in shaping individual political behaviors.

    Keywords: electoral punishment, religion, social capital, poverty, multi-level models

    JEL: C23 D72 I3 O15 A13

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mib:wpaper:368&r=soc

 6. The formation of prosociality: Causal evidence on the role of social environment

    Kosse, Fabian

    Deckers, Thomas

    Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah

    Falk, Armin

 This study presents descriptive and causal evidence on the role of social  environment for the formation of prosociality. In a first step, we show that  socio-economic status (SES) as well as the intensity of mother-child  interaction and mothers prosocial attitudes are systematically related to  elementary school children's prosociality. In a second step, we present  evidence on a randomly assigned variation of the social environment,  providing children with a mentor for the duration of one year. Our data  include a two-year follow-up and reveal a significant and persistent increase  in prosociality in the treatment relative to the control group. Moreover,  enriching the social environment bears the potential to close the observed  developmental gap in prosociality between low and high SES children. Our  findings suggest that the program serves as a substitute for prosocial  stimuli in the family environment.

    Keywords: formation of preferences,prosociality,social preferences,trust,social inequality

    JEL: D64 C90

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:dicedp:266&r=soc

 7. Discrimination through "Versioning" with Advertising in Random Networks

    Antonio Jiménez-Martínez (Division of Economics, CIDE)

    Óscar González-Guerra (Division of Economics, CIDE)  This paper proposes a framework of second-degree discrimination with two  different versions of a service that are served in random networks with  positive externalities. In the model, consumers must choose between  purchasing a premium version of the service or a free version that comes with  advertising about a certain good (unrelated to the service). The ads attached  to the free version influence the free version adopters’ opinions and, given  the induced effects on the good sales, they affect the optimal pricing of the  premium version. We relate the optimal pricing strategy to the underlying  hazard rate and degree distribution of the random network. Under increasing  hazard rates, hazard rate dominance always implies higher prices for the  service. In some applications of the model, decreasing hazard rates are often  associated to extreme situations where only the free version of the service  is provided. The model provides foundations for empirical analysis since key  features of social networks can be related to their underlying hazard rate  functions and degree distributions.

    Keywords: Social networks, second-degree discrimination, advertising, degree distributions, hazard rate

    JEL: D83 D85 L1 M3

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:emc:wpaper:dte600&r=soc

 8. Who Are Nonvoters?

    Lyn Ragsdale (Rice University)

    Jerrold G. Rusk (Rice University)

 This paper examines the motivations of individuals who do not vote in  American elections from 1968 through 2012. Existing research portrays  American nonvoters as a large monolith of people who lack psychological  involvement in politics, do not have adequate personal resources to  participate, have insufficient social networks to be engaged, or are not  sufficiently mobilized by candidates and campaigns. Instead, our paper  maintains that uncertainty in the national campaign context ?the economic,  mass communication, legal, and international environments--drives individual  citizens? decisions about whether to vote. When there is high uncertainty in  the national campaign context, people are more likely to vote. When there is  low uncertainty in the national campaign context, citizens are less likely to  vote. The paper further develops a theoretical distinction between the  external uncertainty found in the national campaign context and the internal  uncertainty citizens feel about which candidate will adequately address the  external uncertainty. In considering this internal uncertainty, four types of  nonvoters emerge as they respond differently to the lack of clarity. First,  the politically ignorant non-voters do not follow the campaign or the  candidates so avoid internal uncertainty about them. Second, the indifferent  follow the campaign and the candidates, but see no differences between the  candidates, leaving internal uncertainty about them. Third, the dissatisfied  know a good deal about the campaign context and the candidates but see one or  more candidates negatively. They too do not vote because internal uncertainty  about the candidates remains unresolved. Finally, the personal hardship  nonvoters pay attention to the campaign and the candidates but do not vote  because of personal hardship associated with unemployment. The paper first  considers broad differences between voters and nonvoters in their knowledge  of politics and attitudes toward elections. It then estimates a model of  nonvoting across the time period. Finally, it considers in greater detail the  four different types of nonvoters, who they are, and what motivates them not  to participate. The study finds that at the presidential level, there are  considerable numbers of dissatisfied nonvoters who do not vote because they  have negative views of one or both candidates. At the midterm level,  nonvoters are more likely to be politically indifferent, not having clear-cut  views of one or both candidates.

    Keywords: elections, participation, uncertainty

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:5007424&r=soc

 9. Measuring Social Connectedness

    Michael Bailey

    Ruiqing (Rachel) Cao

    Theresa Kuchler

    Johannes Stroebel

    Arlene Wong

 We introduce a new measure of social connectedness between U.S. county-pairs,  as well as between U.S. counties and foreign countries. Our measure, which we  call the "Social Connectedness Index" (SCI), is based on the number of  friendship links on Facebook, the world's largest online social networking  service. Within the U.S., social connectedness is strongly decreasing in  geographic distance between counties: for the population of the average  county, 62.8% of friends live within 100 miles. The populations of counties  with more geographically dispersed social networks are generally richer, more  educated, and have a higher life expectancy. Region-pairs that are more  socially connected have higher trade flows, even after controlling for  geographic distance and the similarity of regions along other economic and  demographic measures. Higher social connectedness is also associated with  more cross-county migration and patent citations. Social connectedness  between U.S. counties and foreign countries is correlated with past migration  patterns, with social connectedness decaying in the time since the primary  migration wave from that country. Trade with foreign countries is also  strongly related to social connectedness. These results suggest that the SCI  captures an important role of social networks in facilitating both economic  and social interactions. Our findings also highlight the potential for the  SCI to mitigate the measurement challenges that pervade empirical research on  the role of social interactions across the social sciences.

    JEL: D1 E0 F1 I1 J6 O3

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23608&r=soc

10. On Efficient Information Aggregation Networks

    Antonio Jiménez-Martínez (Division of Economics, CIDE)  This paper considers a population of agents that are connected through a  network that allows them to aggregate locally their pieces of private  information about some uncertain (exogenous) parameter of interest. The  agents wish to match their actions to the true value of the parameter and to  the actions of the other agents. I ask how the design of (interim) efficient  (minimally connected) networks depends on the level of complementarity in the  agents’ actions. When the level of complementarity is either low or high,  efficient networks are characterized by a high number of different  neighborhoods and, as a consequence, by low levels of connectivity. For  intermediate levels of complementarity in actions, efficient networks tend to  feature low numbers of highly connected neighborhoods. The implications of  this paper are relevant in security environments where agents are naturally  interpreted as analysts who try to forecast the value of a parameter that  describes a potential threat to security.

    Keywords: Networks, information aggregation, beauty-contests, strategic complementarity, efficiency

    JEL: C72 D83 D84 D85

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:emc:wpaper:dte601&r=soc

11. The degree measure as utility function over positions in networks

    Rene J.R. van den Brink (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam; Tinbergen

     Institute, The Netherlands)

    Agnieszka Rusinowska (Paris School of Economics -- CNRS, University Paris

 In this paper, we connect the social network theory on centrality measures to  the economic theory of preferences and utility. Using the fact that networks  form a special class of cooperative TU-games, we provide a foundation for the  degree measure as a von Neumann-Morgenstern expected utility function  reflecting preferences over being in different positions in different  networks. The famous degree measure assigns to every position in a weighted  network the sum of the weights of all links with its neighbours. A crucial  property of a preference relation over network positions is neutrality to  ordinary risk. If a preference relation over network positions satisfies this  property and some regularity properties, then it must be represented by a  utility function that is a multiple of the degree centrality measure. We show  this in three steps. First, we characterize the degree measure as a  centrality measure for weighted networks using four natural axioms. Second,  we relate these network centrality axioms to properties of preference  relations over positions in networks. Third, we show that the expected  utility function is equal to a multiple of the degree measure if and only if  it represents a regular preference relation that is neutral to ordinary risk.

 Similarly, we characterize a class of affine combinations of the outdegree  and indegree measure in weighted directed networks and deliver its  interpretation as a von Neumann-Morgenstern expected utility function.

    Keywords: Weighted network; network centrality; utility function; degree centrality; von Neumann-Morgenstern expected utility function; cooperative

     TU-game; weighted directed network.

    JEL: D81 D85 C02

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20170065&r=soc

12. Education and tax morale

    Rodríguez Justicia, David

 While the determinants of tax morale have been widely studied in the  literature, surprisingly, the fundamental influence of education on tax  morale has yet to be investigated. Given the insights in the psychological  and political science literature about the role of education in the formation  of social values, in this paper, we analyze two channels through which  education shapes tax morale. We find that while the tax morale of individuals  that are net receivers of welfare state benefits increases with their  educational level, it decreases with educational level among those who are  net contributors. Furthermore, our results indicate that the more highly  educated, who have been shown to be better able to assess information in the  media on public affairs, exhibit higher levels of tax morale in countries  that have better quality public services, a fairer tax system and more  transparent institutions. JEL classification: H26; H52; I25 Key words: Tax  morale; Tax compliance; Education; Welfare state benefits; Trust in public  institutions

    Keywords: Frau fiscal, Educació moral, Educació i desenvolupament, 336 - Finances. Banca. Moneda. Borsa, 37 - Educació. Ensenyament. Formació.

     Temps lliure,

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:urv:wpaper:2072/290762&r=soc

13. Self-control and crime revisited: Disentangling the effect of self-control on risk taking and antisocial behavior

    Friehe, Tim

    Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah

 Low self-control is considered a fundamental cause of crime. The aim of our  study is to provide causal evidence on the link between self-control and  criminal behavior. We test whether individuals with lower self-control behave  in a more antisocial manner and are less risk-averse and thus are, according  to both the General Theory of Crime and the economic literature on criminal  behavior, more likely to engage in criminal activities. In order to  exogenously vary the level of self-control in a laboratory experiment, we use  a wellestablished experimental manipulation, a so-called depletion task. We  find that subjects with low self-control take more risk. The effect of  self-control on antisocial behavior is small and not significant. In sum, our  findings are consistent with the proposition that low selfcontrol is a  facilitator of crime to the extent that individuals with lower levels of  self-control are less effectively deterred by probabilistic sanctions.

    Keywords: self-control,risk taking,antisocial behavior,criminal behavior,ego-depletion,experiment

    JEL: C91 D03 K42

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:dicedp:264&r=soc

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