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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
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Issue of 2020‒04‒20
twelve papers chosen by Fabio Sabatini Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Kirsten Cornelson; Boriana Miloucheva |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of political polarization on the willingness of people to comply with social distancing directives during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find a reduced compliance with these measures when the state governor differs from the preferred party of survey respondents. Exploring a number of possible mechanisms, we show that these results are strongest in states where the opposing party's advocates are more hostile and provide evidence that compliance is low when recommendations come from an out-group member. This paper, more broadly, demonstrates the consequences of political polarization on the willingness to contribute to public goods. |
| Keywords: | Polarization, health |
| JEL: | I1 P16 Z1 |
| Date: | 2020–04–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-663&r=all |
| By: | Guglielmo Briscese; Nicola Lacetera; Mario Macis; Mirco Tonin |
| Abstract: | We study how intentions to comply with the self-isolation restrictions introduced in Italy to mitigate the COVID-19 epidemic respond to the length of their possible extension. Based on a survey of a representative sample of Italian residents (N=894), we find that respondents who are positively surprised by a given hypothetical extension (i.e. the extension is shorter than what they expected) are more willing to increase their self-isolation. In contrast, negative surprises (extensions longer than expected) are associated with a lower willingness to comply. In a context where individual compliance has collective benefits, but full enforcement is costly and controversial, communication and persuasion have a fundamental role. Our findings provide insights to public authorities on how to announce lockdown measures and manage people’s expectations. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19, social distancing, expectations |
| JEL: | C42 D91 H12 H41 I12 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8182&r=all |
| By: | Hanming Fang; Long Wang; Yang Yang |
| Abstract: | We quantify the causal impact of human mobility restrictions, particularly the lockdown of the city of Wuhan on January 23, 2020, on the containment and delay of the spread of the Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV). We employ a set of difference-in-differences (DID) estimations to disentangle the lockdown effect on human mobility reductions from other confounding effects including panic effect, virus effect, and the Spring Festival effect. We find that the lockdown of Wuhan reduced inflow into Wuhan by 76.64%, outflows from Wuhan by 56.35%, and within-Wuhan movements by 54.15%. We also estimate the dynamic effects of up to 22 lagged population inflows from Wuhan and other Hubei cities, the epicenter of the 2019-nCoV outbreak, on the destination cities' new infection cases. We find, using simulations with these estimates, that the lockdown of the city of Wuhan on January 23, 2020 contributed significantly to reducing the total infection cases outside of Wuhan, even with the social distancing measures later imposed by other cities. We find that the COVID-19 cases would be 64.81% higher in the 347 Chinese cities outside Hubei province, and 52.64% higher in the 16 non-Wuhan cities inside Hubei, in the counterfactual world in which the city of Wuhan were not locked down from January 23, 2020. We also find that there were substantial undocumented infection cases in the early days of the 2019-nCoV outbreak in Wuhan and other cities of Hubei province, but over time, the gap between the officially reported cases and our estimated “actual” cases narrows significantly. We also find evidence that enhanced social distancing policies in the 63 Chinese cities outside Hubei province are effective in reducing the impact of population inflows from the epicenter cities in Hubei province on the spread of 2019-nCoV virus in the destination cities elsewhere. |
| JEL: | I10 I18 |
| Date: | 2020–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26906&r=all |
| By: | Nowack, Daniel; Schoderer, Sophia |
| Abstract: | Shared values are deemed necessary as a solid foundation for social cohesion by commentators and observers in many countries. However, when examining what kind of values this is based on, answers often come down to platitudes and national clichés. This discussion paper offers some clarification through both a theoretical explication and an empirical exploration concerning the general role of values for social cohesion. Values are notions about desirable, trans-situational end-states and behaviours. They fall into two categories, individual and societal values. We provide a critical discussion of the most prominent conceptualisations and their operationalisation in the social sciences. Values affect social cohesion in three possible pathways: First, when they are shared; second, when they promote behaviour per se conducive to social cohesion and third, through their effect on policy choice and institutional design. We review evidence provided by the research literature for each of these pathways. We further explore the third pathway by deriving from the research literature the conjecture that a cultural value emphasis on egalitarianism makes a universalistic scope of welfare institutions more likely, which in turn increases social and political trust. We first examine this conjecture with a series of regression models, and then run a mediation analysis. The results show that (1.) egalitarian values are moderately strongly and positively linked to universalistic welfare institutions, but that (2.) welfare institutions mediate the association of egalitarian values with social trust only to a small extent and that (3.) more universalistic welfare institutions counteract a negative association between egalitarian values and institutional trust. |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:diedps:62020&r=all |
| By: | Eugen Dimant; Gerben A. van Kleef; Shaul Shalvi |
| Abstract: | We examine framing effects in nudging honesty, in the spirit of the growing norm-nudge literature, by utilizing a high-powered and pre-registered study. Across four treatments, participants received one random truthful norm-nudge that emphasized ‘moral suasion’ based on either what other participants previously did (empirical message) or approved of doing (normative message) and varied in the framing (positive or negative) in which it was presented. Subsequently, participants repeatedly played the ‘mind game’ in which they were first asked to think of a number, then rolled a digital die, and then reported whether the two numbers coincide, in which case a bonus was paid. Hence, whether or not the report was truthful remained unobservable to the experimenters. We find compelling null effects with tight confidence intervals showing that none of the norm-nudge interventions worked. A follow-up experiment reveals the reason for these convincing null-effects: the information norm-nudges did not actually change norms. Notably, our secondary results suggest that a substantial portion of individuals misremembered norm-nudges such that they conveniently supported deviant behavior. This subset of participants indeed displayed significantly higher deviance levels, a behavior pattern in line with literature on motivated misremembering and belief distortion. We discuss the importance of this high-powered null finding for the flourishing norm-nudge literature and derive policy implications. |
| Keywords: | norm-nudges, nudge, social information, social norms |
| JEL: | B41 D01 D90 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8170&r=all |
| By: | Andreas Ziegler (University of Kassel) |
| Abstract: | This paper empirically examines whether environmental values are correlated with economic preferences from behavioral economics and considers possible consequences when independence is assumed. The data for this analysis stem from a large-scale computer-based survey among more than 3700 German citizens. Our indicators for environmental values are based on the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP), which is a standard instrument in social and behavioral sciences and increasingly common in economic studies. The econometric analysis with Generalized Poisson regression models reveals strong correlations between two NEP scales and several economic preferences, which are based on established experimental measures: While social preferences (measured in an incentivized dictator game) and positive reciprocity are significantly positively correlated, trust and (less robust) negative reciprocity are significantly negatively correlated with the NEP scales, respectively. Only risk and time preferences (also measured in an incentivized experiment) are not robustly significantly correlated with the NEP scales. These estimation results strongly recommend the additional inclusion of economic preferences in econometric analyses that use a NEP scale as explanatory factor of main interest for environmentally relevant behavior. In particular, not considering social preferences, trust, and positive and negative reciprocity can lead to strong distortions due to omitted variable biases. This conclusion is illustrated in an empirical example that reveals biased estimation results for the effect of a NEP scale on donation activities if not all relevant economic preferences are included as control variables. |
| Keywords: | Environmental values, New Ecological Paradigm (NEP), economic prefer-ences, individual behavior, artefactual field experiments |
| JEL: | Q50 D01 D91 Q57 A13 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:magkse:202020&r=all |
| By: | Dirk Bergemann; Alessandro Bonatti; Tan Gan |
| Abstract: | A data intermediary pays consumers for information about their preferences and sells the information so acquired to firms that use it to tailor their products and prices. The social dimension of the individual data---whereby an individual's data are predictive of the behavior of others---generates a data externality that reduces the intermediary's cost of acquiring information. We derive the intermediary's optimal data policy and show that it preserves the privacy of the consumers' identities while providing precise information about market demand to the firms. This enables the intermediary to capture the entire value of information as the number of consumers grows large. |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2004.03107&r=all |
| By: | Keser, Claudia; Späth, Maximilian |
| Abstract: | We study the robustness of reputation management systems against distortions in rating behavior. In a laboratory trust experiment with reputation management, we mimic a positive bias by exclusively offering the option to rate positively or to give no rating. As predicted by theoretical considerations, this bias leads to significantly less trust than a system that additionally offers a negative rating option. A system relying solely on negative ratings does not have such an adverse effect. This highlights the importance of negative ratings for the effectiveness of reputation systems. |
| Keywords: | Trust,Trustworthiness,Reputation System,Experiment |
| JEL: | C91 L14 C73 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cegedp:389&r=all |
| By: | Filipe R. Campante; Emilio Depetris-Chauvin; Ruben Durante |
| Abstract: | We study how fear can affect the behavior of voters and politicians by looking at the Ebola scare that hit the U.S. a month before the 2014 midterm elections. Exploiting the timing and location of the four cases diagnosed in the U.S., we show that heightened concern about Ebola, as measured by online activity, led to a lower vote share for the Democrats in congressional and gubernatorial elections, as well as lower turnout, despite no evidence of a general anti-incumbent effect (including on President Obama's approval ratings). We then show that politicians responded to the Ebola scare by mentioning the disease in connection with immigration and terrorism in newsletters and campaign ads. This response came only from Republicans, especially those facing competitive races, suggesting a strategic use of the issue in conjunction with topics perceived as favorable to them. Survey evidence suggests that voters responded with increasingly conservative attitudes on immigration but not on other ideologically-charged issues. Taken together, our findings indicate that emotional reactions associated with fear can have a strong electoral impact, that politicians perceive and act strategically in response to this, and that the process is mediated by issues that can be plausibly associated with the specific fear-triggering factor. |
| JEL: | D72 D91 |
| Date: | 2020–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26897&r=all |
| By: | Erika Deserranno; Aisha Nansamba; Nancy Qian |
| Abstract: | We document that in poor rural communities where government workers provide basic health services, the entry of an NGO that aims to provide similar services reduces the supply of government workers and total services. This is consistent with the NGO providing the combination of higher pay and stronger incentives for commercial activities. The decline in health services is most pronounced in villages where the NGO hires the government worker, where there is also an increase in infant mortality. In villages without any health worker beforehand, NGO entry unambiguously increases health services and reduces infant mortality. |
| JEL: | O1 O2 |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26928&r=all |
| By: | Jonathan I. Dingel; Brent Neiman |
| Abstract: | Evaluating the economic impact of "social distancing"' measures taken to arrest the spread of COVID-19 raises a fundamental question about the modern economy: How many jobs can be performed at home? We classify the feasibility of working at home for all occupations and merge this classification with occupational employment counts for the United States. Our classification implies that 34 percent of U.S. jobs can plausibly be performed at home. |
| JEL: | D24 J22 J61 O30 R12 R32 |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26948&r=all |
| By: | Titan M. Alon; Matthias Doepke; Jane Olmstead-Rumsey; Michèle Tertilt |
| Abstract: | The economic downturn caused by the current COVID-19 outbreak has substantial implications for gender equality, both during the downturn and the subsequent recovery. Compared to “regular” recessions, which affect men’s employment more severely than women’s employment, the employment drop related to social distancing measures has a large impact on sectors with high female employment shares. In addition, closures of schools and daycare centers have massively increased child care needs, which has a particularly large impact on working mothers. The effects of the crisis on working mothers are likely to be persistent, due to high returns to experience in the labor market. Beyond the immediate crisis, there are opposing forces which may ultimately promote gender equality in the labor market. First, businesses are rapidly adopting flexible work arrangements, which are likely to persist. Second, there are also many fathers who now have to take primary responsibility for child care, which may erode social norms that currently lead to a lopsided distribution of the division of labor in house work and child care. |
| JEL: | D10 E24 J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26947&r=all |