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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
| By: | Antoci, Angelo; Sabatini, Fabio; Sodini, Mauro |
| Abstract: | We set up a theoretical framework to analyze the possible role of economic growth and technical progress in the erosion of social capital. Under certain parameters, the relationship between technical progress and social capital can take the shape of an inverted U curve. We show the circumstances allowing the economy to follow trajectories where the stock of social capital grows endogenously and unboundedly. |
| Keywords: | Social capital; technological progress; economic growth; social interactions |
| JEL: | O11 J22 O33 Z13 O12 |
| Date: | 2011–04–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:30326&r=soc |
| By: | Francesca Cornaglia; Andrew Leigh |
| Abstract: | Most estimates of the cost of crime focus on victims. Yet it is plausible that an even larger cost of crime occurs via its indirect impact on the mental wellbeing of non-victims. To test how crime affects individuals' mental outcomes, we exploit detailed panel data on mental wellbeing, allowing us to observe the relationship between changes in crime in a local area and changes in the mental wellbeing of resident non-victims in that area (controlling for changes in local economic conditions). Our results suggest that increases in crime rates have a negative impact on the mental wellbeing of residents, with the biggest impacts arising from violent crime. We also find that local press coverage of criminal activity enhances the effect of crime on mental well-being. |
| Keywords: | neighbourhood effects, mental health, fear of crime |
| JEL: | I18 K14 |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1049&r=soc |
| By: | Tiago Freire; Vernon Henderson; Ari Kuncoro |
| Abstract: | Using three waves of survey data from fishing villages in Aceh, Indonesia for 2005-2009, we examine the determinants of local volunteer labor after the tsunami. Pre-existing social capital and the form of aid delivery (but not trauma) strongly affect village volunteerism initially, but these effects weaken with time. What persists is the effect of essentially a new institution, formal village elections. While recent work suggests democratization increases cooperation, the differentially timed introduction of elections negatively affects volunteerism, suggesting a regime switch effect where traditional leaders chosen by elites want more volunteer labor projects than democratically elected leaders do. |
| Keywords: | # |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bro:econwp:2011-8&r=soc |
| By: | L. Mauro; Francesco Pigliaru |
| Abstract: | Since Putnam s work on social capital, the Italian regional case has been a very rich source of both data and theories about the origins of large and persistent differences in local stocks of social capital, and about the impact of such differences on economic performances. The Italian case is widely interpreted as supporting the idea that persistent regional divides are largely explained by local differences in social capital. In this paper we maintain that this interpretation fails to recognize that the current large regional gap in Italy is significantly linked to two policy decisions taken by the central State at the beginning of the 1970s. In particular, we focus on the possibility that social capital became a binding constraint for the growth of southern Italy’s mainly as a consequence of the deep process of governmental decentralization that began in the1970s. We formalize this hypothesis by using an endogenous growth model with public capital. In this model, the accumulation of public capital is characterized by the presence of iceberg costs that depend on social capital. Decentralization affects these costs because the impact of the local stocks of social capital on public investment increases when the latter is managed locally. To assess the role of decentralization as a trigger of the influence of local social capital on growth, we control for the impact of labor market reforms, a second and almost simultaneous institutional shock that took place in Italy and that made regional labor markets far more rigid than in the previous decades. In the second part of our paper, we use the large empirical literature on the Italian regions to restrict the values of the parameters of our model in order to perform a simple simulation exercise. In this exercise, the model turns out to be able to account for the major swings in the convergence of southern regions towards the center-northern regions since 1861. The general lessons we can draw from this further analysis of the Italian regional case are as follows. First, we show that the strength of social capital as a determinant of long-run growth may depend on some well-defined characteristic of the institutional context. Second, our model suggests that the economic success of decentralization policies -- even when the budget constraint is not "soft" -- depends on the local endowment of social capital. |
| Keywords: | Growth; Decentralization; Convergence; Social Capital |
| JEL: | O4 R5 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cns:cnscwp:201103&r=soc |
| By: | Mujcic, Redzo (University of Queensland); Frijters, Paul (University of Queensland) |
| Abstract: | We study social preferences in the form of altruism using data on 959 interactions between random commuters at selected traffic intersections in the city of Brisbane, Australia. By observing real decisions of individual commuters on whether to stop (give way) for others, we find evidence of (i) gender discrimination by both men and women, with women discriminating relatively more against the same sex than men, and men discriminating in favour of the opposite sex more than women; (ii) status-seeking and envy, with individuals who drive a more luxury motor vehicle having a 0.18 lower probability of receiving a kind treatment from others of low status, however this result improves when the decision maker is also of high status; (iii) strong peer effects, with those commuters accompanied by other passengers being 25 percent more likely to sacrifice for others; and (iv) an age effect, with mature-aged people eliciting a higher degree of altruism. |
| Keywords: | altruism, social interaction, social discrimination, status, peer effects, commuters |
| JEL: | D64 C90 |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5648&r=soc |
| By: | Nikos Nikiforakis; Charles N. Noussair; Tom Wilkening |
| Abstract: | A normative conflict arises when there exist multiple plausible norms of behavior. In such cases, norm enforcement can lead to a sequence of mutual retaliatory sanctions, which we refer to as a feud. We investigate the hypothesis that normative conflict enhances the likelihood of a feud in a public-good experiment. We find that punishment is much more likely to trigger counter-punishment and start a feud when there is a normative conflict, than in a setting in which no conflict exists. While the possibility of a feud sustains cooperation,the cost of feuding fully offsets the efficiency gains from increased cooperation. |
| Keywords: | normative conflict; peer punishment; feuds; counter-punishment; social norms |
| JEL: | C92 D70 H41 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mlb:wpaper:1120&r=soc |
| By: | Kaiser, Ulrich (University of Zurich); Kongsted, Hans Christian (University of Copenhagen); Rønde, Thomas (Copenhagen Business School) |
| Abstract: | We study the mapping between labor mobility and industrial innovative activity for the population of R&D active Danish firms observed between 1999 and 2004. Our study documents a positive relationship between the number of workers who join a firm and the firm's innovative activity. This relationship is stronger if workers join from innovative firms. We also find evidence for positive feedback from workers who leave for an innovative firm, presumably because the worker who left stays in contact with their former colleagues. This implies that the positive feedback ("social network effects") that has been found by other studies not only exists but even outweighs the disruption and loss of knowledge occurring to the previous employer from the worker leaving. Summing up the effects of joining and leaving workers, we find ample evidence for mobility to be associated with an increase in total innovative activity of the new and the old employer. |
| Keywords: | labor mobility, innovation, social network |
| JEL: | O33 O34 C23 |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5654&r=soc |
| By: | Chen, Hung-Ju |
| Abstract: | This study examines the effects of monetary policy in a two-sector cash-in-advance economy of human capital accumulation. Agents concern about their social status represented by the relative physical capital and relative human capital. We find that if the desire for social status depends only on relative physical capital, money is superneutral in the growth-rate sense. However, if the desire for social status depends on relative human capital, the money growth rate will have a positive effect on the long-run economic growth rate. Furthermore, an increase in the desire to pursue human capital will raise the long-run growth rate, but an increase in the desire to pursue physical capital will lower it. |
| Keywords: | Cash-in-advance economy; Endogenous growth; Social status. |
| JEL: | O42 E52 C62 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:30253&r=soc |
| By: | Herrmann-Pillath, Carsten |
| Abstract: | China's rise drives a growing impact of China on economics. So far, this mainly works via the force of example, but there is also an emerging role of Chinese thinking in economics. This paper raises the question how far Chinese perspectives can affect certain foundational principles in economics, such as the assumptions on individualism and self-interest allegedly originating in Adam Smith. I embark on sketching a 'third culture' in economics, employing a notion from cross-cultural communication theory, which starts out from the observation that the Chinese model was already influential during the European enlightenment, especially on physiocracy, suggesting a particular conceptualization of the relation between good government and a liberal market economy. I relate this observation with the current revisionist view on China's economic history which has revealed the strong role of markets in the context of informal institutions, and thereby explains the strong performance of the Chinese economy in pre-industrial times. I sketch the cultural legacy of this pattern for traditional Chinese conceptions of social interaction and behavior, which are still strong in rural society until today. These different strands of argument are woven together in a comparison between Confucian thinking and Adam Smith, especially with regard to the 'Theory of Moral Sentiments', which ends up in identifying a number of conceptual family resemblances between the two. I conclude with sketching a 'third culture' in economics in which moral aspects of economic action loom large, as well as contextualized thinking in economic policies. -- |
| Keywords: | Confucianism,Adam Smith,physiocracy,collectivism and individualism,social relations in China,morality,economy of Imperial China |
| JEL: | B11 B12 Z1 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:fsfmwp:159&r=soc |
| By: | Matteo Cervellati; Sunde, Uwe |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the empirical role of violent conflicts for the causal effect of democracy on economic growth. Exploiting within-country variation to identify the effect of democratization during the "Third Wave", we find evidence that the effect of democratization is weaker than reported previously once one accounts for the incidence of conflict, while the incidence of conflict itself significantly reduces growth. The results show in turn that permanent democratic transitions significantly reduce the incidence and onset of conflict, which suggests that part of the positive growth effect of democratization arises because democratization reduces conflict incidence. When accounting for the role of violence during democratization, we find evidence that peaceful transitions to democracy have a significant positive effect on growth that is even larger than reported in the previous literature, while violent transitions to democracy have no, or even negative, effects on economic growth. |
| Keywords: | Democratization, Armed Conict, Civil War, Economic Growth, Democratization Scenario, Peaceful Transition. |
| JEL: | O43 N10 N40 |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usg:econwp:2011:14&r=soc |
| By: | Daniel M. Hungerman |
| Abstract: | For over a century, social scientists have debated how educational attainment impacts religious belief. In this paper, I use Canadian compulsory schooling laws to identify the relationship between completed schooling and later religiosity. I find that higher levels of education lead to lower levels of religious participation later in life. An additional year of education leads to a 4-percentage-point decline in the likelihood that an individual identifies with any religious tradition; the estimates suggest that increases in schooling can explain most of the large rise in non-affiliation in Canada in recent decades. |
| JEL: | I20 I28 Z12 |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16973&r=soc |
| By: | Al-Ubaydli, Omar; Lee, Min |
| Abstract: | Over 25% of the US population volunteers. Clary et al. (1998) devised a survey that identifies a volunteer’s primary motive for volunteering. We investigate the effect of tailoring the communications that volunteers receive from their organizations (e.g., printed newsletters, update emails) to each volunteer’s stated motive for volunteering affects volunteer performance. We find that in general, such tailoring has no effect, but that for volunteers who are motivated primarily by the pursuit of career-related benefits, such tailoring can have a substantial, positive effect on hours volunteered. We also find that the (in)effectiveness of this tailoring does not depend upon the volunteers’ knowledge of the tailoring. The tailoring of communications does not involve the explicit manipulation of material incentives. This renders it particularly attractive given the emergence of evidence on how extrinsic incentives can crowd out intrinsic incentives, especially in the domain of charitable contributions. |
| Keywords: | volunteering; charitable contributions; priming; stereotype |
| JEL: | D64 L31 |
| Date: | 2011–04–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:30343&r=soc |
| By: | Torshizian, Eilya; Mehrara, Mohsen |
| Abstract: | Increasing happiness of population as the ultimate goal has engaged economist’s interest in identifying, measuring and theorizing based on the amount of influence of effective components on happiness. What makes this paper remarkable in contrast to similar studies is its Islamic ideological structure of society and being a free economic zone. Method used to estimating happiness is Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with latent variables. Results do not confirm presence of the Easterlin paradox in this society and moreover the religious variables are not significant. |
| Keywords: | Behavioral Economics; Economics of Happiness; Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with latent variables; Subjective Well-Being |
| JEL: | Z10 C30 D60 |
| Date: | 2011–03–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:30085&r=soc |