|
on Social Norms and Social Capital |
|
Issue of 2025–03–03
eight papers chosen by Fabio Sabatini, Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” |
| By: | Daron Acemoglu |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews the main motivations and arguments of my work on comparative development, colonialism and institutional change, which was often carried out jointly with James Robinson and Simon Johnson. I then provide a simple framework to organize these ideas and connect them with my research on innovation and technology. The framework is centered around a utility-technology possibilities frontier, which delineates the possible distributions of resources in a society both for given technology and working via different technological choices. It highlights how various types of institutions, market structures, norms and ideologies influence moves along the frontier and shifts of the frontier, and it provides a simple formalization of the social forces that lead to institutional persistence and those that can trigger institutional change. The framework also enables us to conceptualize how, during periods of disruption, existing—and sometimes quite small—differences can have amplified effects on prosperity and institutional trajectories. In this way, it suggests some parallels between different disruptive periods, including the onset of European colonialism, the spread (or lack thereof) of industrial technologies in the 19th century, and decisions related to the use, adoption and development of AI today. |
| JEL: | N30 O33 P50 |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33442 |
| By: | Brice Fabre (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, IPP - Institut des politiques publiques); Marc Sangnier (UNamur - Université de Namur [Namur], AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses French data to simultaneously estimate the impact of two types of connections on government subsidies allocated to municipalities. Investigating different types of connection in a same setting helps to distinguish between the different motivations that could drive pork-barreling. We differentiate between municipalities where ministers held office before their appointment to the government and those where they lived as children. Exploiting ministers' entries into and exits from the government, we show that municipalities where a minister was mayor receive 30% more investment subsidies when the politician they are linked to joins the government, and a similar size decrease when the minister departs. In contrast, we do not observe these outcomes for municipalities where ministers lived as children. These findings indicate that altruism toward childhood friends and family does not fuel pork-barreling, and suggest that altruism toward adulthood social relations or career concerns matter. We also present complementary evidence suggesting that observed porkbarreling is the result of soft influence of ministers, rather than of their formal control over the administration they lead.✩ This paper was previously circulated under the titles ''What motivates French pork: Political career concerns or private connections?'' and ''The returns from private and political connections: New evidence from French municipalities''. We greatly appreciated comments and suggestions from three anonymous reviewers, the Editor, |
| Keywords: | Local favoritism, Distributive politics, Political connections, Personal connections |
| Date: | 2024–12–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:pseptp:hal-04930928 |
| By: | Maurizio Bussolo; Jonah Matthew Rexer; Margaret Triyana |
| Abstract: | A growing literature attributes gender inequality in labor market outcomes in part to the reduction in female labor supply after childbirth, the child penalty. However, if social norms constrain married women’s activities outside the home, then marriage can independently reduce employment, even in the absence childbearing. Given the correlation in timing between childbirth and marriage, conventional estimates of child penalties will conflate these two effects. The paper studies the marriage penalty in South Asia, a context featuring conservative gender norms and low female labor force participation. The study introduces a split-sample, pseudo-panel approach that allows for the separation of marriage and child penalties even in the absence of individual-level panel data. Marriage reduces women’s labor force participation in South Asia by 12 percentage points, whereas the marginal penalty of childbearing is small. Consistent with the central roles of both opportunity costs and social norms, the marriage penalty is smaller among cohorts with higher education and less conservative gender attitudes. |
| Date: | 2024–10–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10946 |
| By: | Benjamin Cornejo Costas; Nicola Cortinovis; Andrea Morrison; |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the relationship between migrant inventors, informal institutions and the development of green technologies in European regions. We argue that migrant inventors act as an unlocking mechanism that transfers external knowledge to host regions, and that informal institutions (i.e. social capital, migrant acceptance) mediate this effect. The work is based on an original dataset of migrant inventors covering 271 NUTS2 regions in the 27 EU countries, the UK, Switzerland, and Norway. The analysis shows that migrant inventors help their host regions to diversify into green technologies. The regions with the highest levels of both measures of social capital show a higher propensity of migrant inventors to act knowledge brokers. Conversely, regions with lower levels of migrant acceptance and social capital do not seem to contribute to this effect. |
| Keywords: | lock-in, international migration, green innovation, social capital, acceptance, regional diversification, EU regions |
| JEL: | F22 J61 O30 R12 Q55 |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2503 |
| By: | Arnone, Massimo; Drago, Carlo; Costantiello, Alberto; Leogrande, Angelo |
| Abstract: | The current study addresses political party trust and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principle application in Italian regions. Trust in political parties is a principal driving force in governance performance, compliance with policies, and citizen trust in institution-made choices. With political and economic diversity in its regions, Italian regions present a case study for testing whether political institution trust increased creates increased ESG use and whether ESG policies have an impact in shaping political trust in reciprocity. Empirical evidence confirms that in high political trust regions, ESG programs have a high opportunity for effective implementation, particularly in social welfare and conservation of environment. In contrast, political institution trust weakness is accompanied with poor ESG pledges, an expression of inefficient governance and reduced accountability in companies. ESG policies actually have an impact on political trust—effective and transparent ESG actions establish institution trust, but shallow and political ESG actions produce mistrust. The observations have a function of projecting the contribution towards balancing institution trust with sustainability through governance quality. Policymakers can contribute towards leveraging political stability in driving ESG integration in a manner that keeps such programs effective and credible for long-term development in regions and for democratic legitimacy. |
| Keywords: | Political Trust, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), Institutional Governance, Regional Disparities, Sustainability Policies. |
| JEL: | D72 G34 M14 Q58 R58 |
| Date: | 2025–01–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:123494 |
| By: | Luca Delle Foglie (DEF, University of Rome "Tor Vergata"); Stefano Papa (DEF, University of Rome "Tor Vergata"); Giancarlo Spagnolo (CEIS & DEF, University of Rome "Tor Vergata") |
| Abstract: | We examine how betrayal aversion and ambiguity attitudes influence trust. To disentangle these effects, we use a Trust game and manipulate trustors’ perception of being the intentional recipients of trustees’ betrayal by varying the nature of the latter: a human or a machine that replicates human choices in probability. After confirming that this manipulation does not affect ambiguity attitudes or beliefs about others’ behavior, we find that both factors significantly influence trust. Nonetheless, even when controlling for these attitudes and beliefs, participants exhibit lower trust in humans than in machine. Furthermore, using Noldus’ FaceReader technology to measure emotions during trustors’ decision-making process, we find that participants express greater anger toward human trustees. Our results indicate that both betrayal aversion and ambiguity attitudes play important roles in shaping trust decisions. |
| Keywords: | Ambiguity attitudes, Anger, Betrayal cost, Emotions, FaceReader, Trust game |
| JEL: | A13 C91 D03 D64 D90 |
| Date: | 2025–02–21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:593 |
| By: | Sulitzeanu-Kenan, Raanan (The Hebrew University); Tepe, Markus (University of Bremen); Alon-Barkat, Saar; Erlbruch, Florian; Yair, Omer; Jankowski, Michael; Prokop, Christine |
| Abstract: | Honest behavior of public sector workers is an important quality of governance, impacting the functioning of government institutions, the level of corruption, economic development and public trust. Scholars often assume that honesty is inherent to public sector culture, however empirical evidence on the causal effect of public sector culture on honest behavior is lacking. This research addresses this question by estimating the causal effect of priming public sector identity on the honest behavior of public employees. We validated an instrument for priming public sector identity, and employed it in five preregistered incentivized experiments among civil servants in Germany, Israel, Italy, Sweden and the UK (N=2, 827). We find no evidence for the effect of public sector culture on honest behavior in both individual (four studies) and collaborative (one study) tasks. The theoretical implications of these results for the study of moral behavior in the public sector are discussed. |
| Date: | 2025–02–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:h29mq_v1 |
| By: | MATTIA BALESTRA; GIULIO CAINELLI; ROBERTO GANAU; NADIIA MATSIUK; MARIO PASQUATO; ROBERTO PIERDICCA |
| Abstract: | We combine history with economic geography to contribute shading light on the long-run determinants of territorial development differentials in Italy. Specifically, we study the effects of historical sovereignty change on current local economic development. We measure historical sovereignty change through the yearly number of changes in sovereignty occurred in the period 1000–1861⎯that is, until the unification of Italy⎯and assess its effects on labor productivity in 2018. We estimate a negative effect of historical sovereignty change on current local economic development, and identify⎯both theoretically and empirically⎯civic capital as a plausible underlying mechanism. |
| Keywords: | Historical sovereignty change; civic capital; local economic development; Italy |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2504 |