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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
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Issue of 2020‒10‒26
twelve papers chosen by Fabio Sabatini Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Daniel Sgroi, (University of Warwick, IZA, ESRC CAGE Centre); Michela Redoano, (University of Warwick); Federica Liberini, (University of Bath); Ben Lockwood, (University of Warwick); Emanuele Bracco, (Universita di Verona); Francesco Porcell, (Universita di Bari) |
| Abstract: | Italy became one nation only relatively recently and as such there remains significant regional variation in trust in government and society (so-called “social capital”) as well as in language and diet. In an experiment conducted across three Italian cities we exploit variation in family background generated through internal migration and make use of novel measures of social capital, language and diet to develop a new index of cultural heritage. Our new index predicts social capital, while self-reported identity does not. The missing link between the past and current identity seems to come through grandparents (especially maternal grandmothers) who have a strong role in developing the cultural identity of their grandchildren. |
| Keywords: | JEL Classification: |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:498&r=all |
| By: | Brañas-Garza, Pablo; Cabrales, Antonio; Mateu, Guillermo; Angel, Sanchez; Sutan, Angela |
| Abstract: | We study experimentally the impact of pre-play social interactions on negotiations. We isolate the impact of several common components of interactions: conversations, food, and alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverages. Participants perform a standardized negotiation (complex and simple) under six conditions: without interaction, interaction only, and interactions with water, wine, water and food and wine and food. We find that none of the treatments improves the outcomes over the treatment without interactions. We also study trust and reciprocity, where we find the same lack of superiority of interaction. |
| Keywords: | negotiation, trust, business meals, social interactions, alcohol. |
| JEL: | C91 I18 M11 |
| Date: | 2020–07–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:102842&r=all |
| By: | Oliver Rehbein; Simon Rother |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes social connectedness as an information channel in bank lending. We move beyond the inefficient lending between peers in exclusive networks by exploiting Facebook data that reflect social ties within the U.S. population. After accounting for physical and cultural distances, social connectedness increases cross-county lending, especially when lending requires more information and screening incentives are intact. On average, a standard-deviation increase in social connectedness increases cross-county lending by 24.5%, which offsets the lending barrier posed by 600 miles between borrower and lender. While the ex-ante risk of a loan is unrelated to social connectedness, borrowers from well-connected counties cause smaller losses if they default. Borrowers' counties tend to profit from their social proximity to bank lending, as GDP growth and employment increase with social proximity. Our results reveal the important role of social connectedness in bank lending, partly explain the large effects of physical distance, and suggest implications for antitrust policies. |
| Keywords: | bank lending, social networks, information frictions, culture, distance |
| JEL: | D82 D83 G21 O16 L14 Z13 |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2020_162v2&r=all |
| By: | Luca P. Merlino; Paolo Pin; Nicole Tabasso |
| Abstract: | We study the diffusion of a true and a false message (the rumor) in a social network. Upon hearing a message, individuals may believe it, disbelieve it, or debunk it through costly verification. Whenever the truth survives in steady state, so does the rumor. Online social communication exacerbates relative rumor prevalence as long as it increases homophily or verification costs. Our model highlights that successful policies in the fight against rumors increase individuals' incentives to verify. |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2010.01018&r=all |
| By: | Hagmann, David (Harvard University); minson, julia; Tinsley, Catherine |
| Abstract: | Working with people who hold opposing ideological views can be challenging, as they are often perceived as less capable and less trustworthy than those who share one’s own positions. Across five preregistered experiments (combined n = 3,423), we find that participants view those who share personal stories as more trustworthy than those who share data-driven information or stories about a third party. The perception of trustworthiness is mediated by the extent to which the speaker engages in self-revelation and is greater when the narrative reveals hardship experienced by the author. We further show that people prefer to work on a task relying on trust with someone who shared a personal narrative but prefer the author of a data-driven argument when the task involves cognitive abilities. Finally, we show that greater perceived trustworthiness also emerges in response to naturalistic messages written by untrained authors, as rated by a nationally representative sample. |
| Date: | 2020–09–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:sw7nz&r=all |
| By: | Oliver Rehbein; Simon Rother |
| Abstract: | This paper provides empirical evidence that banks leverage social connections as an information channel. Using county-to-county friendship-link data from Facebook, we find that strong social ties increase loan volumes, especially if screening incentives are large. This effect is distinct from physical and cultural distances. Physical distance becomes significantly less relevant when accounting for social connections. Moreover, sufficiently strong social ties prevent cultural differences from constituting a lending barrier. The effect of social connectedness is more supply-side driven for small banks but demand-side driven for large banks. To bolster identification, we exploit highway connections, historical travel costs, and the quasi-random staggered introduction of Facebook as instruments. Our results reveal the important role of social connectedness as an information channel, speak to the nature of borrowing constraints, and point toward implications for bank-lending strategies and anti-trust policies. |
| Keywords: | bank lending, social networks, information frictions, culture, distance |
| JEL: | D82 D83 G21 O16 L14 Z13 |
| Date: | 2020–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2020_162v1&r=all |
| By: | Elisabeth Grewenig; Philipp Lergetporer; Katharina Werner |
| Abstract: | Gender gaps in labor-market outcomes often emerge with arrival of the first child. We investigate a causal link between gender norms and labor-supply expectations within a survey experiment among 2,000 German adolescents. Using a hypothetical scenario, we document that most girls expect to work 20 hours or less per week when having a young child, and expect from their partners to work 30 hours or more. Randomized treatments that highlight the existing traditional norm towards mothers, significantly reduce girls’ self-expected labor supply and thereby increase the expected gender difference in labor supply between their partners and themselves (i.e., the expected within-family gender gap). Treatment effects persist in a follow-up survey two weeks later, and extend to incentivized outcomes. In a second experiment conducted in the follow-up survey, we highlight another, more gender-egalitarian, norm towards shared household responsibilities and show that this attenuates the expected within-family gender gap. Together our results suggest that social norms play an important role in shaping gender gaps in labor-market outcomes around child birth. |
| Keywords: | gender norms, female labor supply, survey experiment |
| JEL: | J16 J22 C93 D83 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8611&r=all |
| By: | Barbara Boelmann (University College London); Anna Raute (Queen Mary University of London); Uta Schönberg (University College London) |
| Abstract: | Does the culture in which a woman grows up influence her labor market decisions once she has had a child? To what extent might the culture of her present social environment shape maternal labor supply? To address these questions, we exploit the setting of German reunification. A state socialist country, East Germany strongly encouraged mothers to participate in the labor market full-time, whereas West Germany propagated a more traditional male breadwinner-model. After reunification, these two cultures were suddenly thrown together, with consequent increased social interactions between East and West Germans through migration and commuting. A comparison of East and West German mothers on both sides of the former Inner German border within the same commuting zone shows that culture matters. Indeed, East German mothers return to work more quickly and for longer hours than West German mothers even two decades after reunification. Second, in exploiting migration across this old border, we document a strong asymmetry in the persistence of the culture in which women were raised. Whereas East German female migrants return to work earlier and work longer hours than their West German colleagues even after long exposure to the more traditional West German culture, West German migrants adjust their post-birth labour supply behaviour nearly entirely to that of their East German colleagues. Finally, taking advantage of differential inflows of East German migrants across West German firms in the aftermath of reunification, we show that even a partial exposure to East German colleagues induces “native” West German mothers to accelerate their return to work after childbirth, suggesting that migration might be a catalyst for cultural change. |
| Keywords: | cultural transmission, social norms, maternal labor force participation, German |
| JEL: | J1 J2 Z1 |
| Date: | 2020–10–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qmw:qmwecw:914&r=all |
| By: | Pierre-Emmanuel Arduin (DRM - Dauphine Recherches en Management - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Bako Rajaonah (LAMIH - Laboratoire d'Automatique, de Mécanique et d'Informatique industrielles et Humaines - UMR 8201 - UPHF - Université Polytechnique Hauts-de-France - UPHF - Université Polytechnique Hauts-de-France - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Kathia Marçal de Oliveira (LAMIH - Laboratoire d'Automatique, de Mécanique et d'Informatique industrielles et Humaines - UMR 8201 - UPHF - Université Polytechnique Hauts-de-France - UPHF - Université Polytechnique Hauts-de-France - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | This chapter tackles knowledge sharing by focusing on security and trust issues. Although trust is recognized as important in security issues, few studies on information systems (ISs) deal with both trust and security. Knowledge sharing relies on sense-giving and sense-reading processes which require, encourage, and even create trust within individuals. We argue that individuals are processors of information and interpret information to create their own tacit knowledge.Recent security reports from organizations have presented that the majority of ISs security threats involve employees within the organizations. Individuals, as well as computers, maybe attacked through social engineering techniques in order to gain their trust. Despite this evidence, most of the work has focused on the control of outsider security threats rather than of insider security threats, particularly when humans are perpetrators.We propose to study insider threats through a trust factor during the knowledge sharing process. Knowledge sharers may induce insider threats for security due to trust-related attitudes and behaviours. The proposition is twofold with interviews and self-report questionnaires to collect information about the trust, and ontologies to categorize such information. The proposition is then discussed, notably in terms of problems and answers leading to study trust in security when sharing knowledge. |
| Keywords: | Tacit knowledge,Trust,Insider threats |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02953836&r=all |
| By: | Roupakias, Stelios; Dimou, Spiridoula |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the relationship between immigration and host countries’ institutional quality, using international migration data, and two composite metrics, encompassing multiple dimensions of governance. Moreover, we construct indicators of cultural diversity, such as fractionalization and polarization, to capture potential effects from multiculturalism. To reduce endogeneity concerns, we employ pseudo gravity-based instruments in a 2SLS setting. Overall, our findings suggest that counties with higher immigrant concentrations and cultural polarization display lower levels of institutional quality. Notably, however, the impact on countries with healthy institutions appear to be negligible. |
| Keywords: | Immigration · Diversity · Institutions |
| JEL: | J15 O15 O43 |
| Date: | 2020–10–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:103268&r=all |
| By: | Akerlof, Robert (University of Warwick and CEPR); Rayo, Luis (Kellogg School of Management and CEPR) |
| Abstract: | We augment Becker’s classic model of the family by assuming that, in addition to caring about consumption, the family wishes to further a subjective story, or narrative, that captures its deeply held values. Our focus is on two stories that in many ways are polar opposites. The first one—the protector narrative—gives rise to a type of traditional family where gender roles are distinct, men and women are pushed towards “separate spheres,” and men are expected to be tough and authoritarian. The second one—the fulfillment narrative—gives rise to a type of modern family where roles are less distinct, family members have greater latitude in their decisions, and marriages are based to a greater extent on romantic love. We derive a rich bundle of behaviors associated with each story, and using survey data, we show that our findings are consistent with a variety of empirical patterns. |
| Keywords: | family, narratives, gender norms, marriage JEL Classification: D10, Z10 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:503&r=all |
| By: | Fernández-Bonilla, Fernando |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how to calculate the propensity of individuals to participate in e-commerce, studying the variables that affect costumers at the time of the online transactions and how to modify their inclination to it, being the most relevant variables socioeconomic and those which are related to the personal abilities of individuals, being one of the most important the e-Trust, variable of special importance in this business and that influences not only on buying or not, but also on how they relate to the bidders. In order to do this study, a Logit model is used. |
| Keywords: | e-commerce,e-trust,Internet,Logit,consumers |
| JEL: | C01 C25 D12 L81 L86 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:itso20:224853&r=all |