NEP: New Economics Papers - Social Norms and Social Capital - Digest, Vol 128, Issue 4

In this issue we feature 7 current papers on the theme of social capital, chosen by Fabio Sabatini (Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”):

1. An Experimental Study of Within- and Cross-cultural Cooperation: Chinese and American Play in the Prisoner’s Dilemma Game Michael Kuroda; Jieran Li; Jason Shachat; Lijia Wei; Bochen Zhu

2. Resistance to Institutions and Cultural Distance: Brigandage in Post-Unification Italy Giampaolo Lecce; Laura Ogliari; Tommaso Orlando

3. Fighting Climate Change: The Role of Norms, Preferences, and Moral Values Armin Falk; Peter Andre; Teodora Boneva; Felix Chopra

4. Gender Norms and Intimate Partner Violence Gonzalez, Libertad; Rodríguez-Planas, Núria

5. The effects of incentives, social norms, and employees' values on work performance Michael Roos; Jessica Reale; Frederik Banning

6. Gender Norms and Women's Decision to Work: Evidence from Japan Rodríguez-Planas, Núria; Tanaka, Ryuichi

7. Field Evidence of the Effects of Pro-sociality and Transparency on COVID-19 App Attractiveness Dooley, Samuel; Turjeman, Dana; Dickerson, John P; Redmiles, Elissa M.

1. An Experimental Study of Within- and Cross-cultural Cooperation: Chinese and American Play in the Prisoner’s Dilemma Game Michael Kuroda (Economic Science Institute, Chapman University); Jieran Li (Economic Science Institute, Chapman University); Jason Shachat (Durham University and Wuhan University); Lijia Wei (Wuhan University); Bochen Zhu (Wuhan University) We study whether cross- and within-culture groups have different cooperation rates in the Prisoner’s Dilemma Game. In an experiment, university students in China and America engage in a single iteration of the game, complete belief elicitation tasks regarding their opponents’ play and take a survey including attitudinal measurements regarding their in- and out-group attitudes. Cooperation rates are higher across the two countries are higher in both cross-culture and in within-culture interactions, although not significantly. We also find that Chinese participants cooperate less than American ones. Further, female Chinese participants are more cooperative than Chinese male ones. In the cross-culture treatment, Chinese participants underestimate the likelihood of cooperative behavior of their American counterparts, while Americans overestimate the same likelihood of their Chinese counterparts. Our results also show that Chinese participants cooperate more conditionally than American ones. Finally, while we find some attitudinal in- and out-biases both they do not generate meaningful impact on cooperative behavior. JEL: C72 C92 D91 Keywords: Cross-culture; Prisoner’s Dilemma; Cooperation; Experiment Date: 2021 URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chu:wpaper:21-14&r=&r=soc

2. Resistance to Institutions and Cultural Distance: Brigandage in Post-Unification Italy Giampaolo Lecce (Groningen University); Laura Ogliari (University of Milan); Tommaso Orlando (Bank of Italy) What determines the rejection of exogenously imposed institutions? To address this question, we exploit the transplantation of institutions that occurred when southern Italy was annexed to Piedmont, during the Italian unification process of the 1860s. We assemble a novel dataset on episodes of brigandage, a form of violent uprising against the unitary government, and on pre-unification social and economic characteristics of southern Italian municipalities. We find that the intensity of institutional rejection is ceteris paribus lower in and close to settlements of Piedmontese origin. We argue that geographical distance from these communities is a proxy for cultural distance from the Piedmontese rulers. Thus, our results suggest that cultural proximity to the ‘donor’ reduces institutional rejection by ‘recipient’ communities in the context of institutional transplantations. We rule out alternative mechanisms proposed by the economic literature, provide suggestive evidence of cultural persistence and diffusion in our context, and discuss two possible culture-based interpretations of our results: a clash between local values and the content of the new institutions, and social identification with the Piedmontese rulers. JEL: N43 D74 P16 Z10 Keywords: Institutions, Culture, Institutional Transplantations, Cultural Diffusion Date: 2021–04–14 URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csl:devewp:473&r=&r=soc

3. Fighting Climate Change: The Role of Norms, Preferences, and Moral Values Armin Falk; Peter Andre; Teodora Boneva; Felix Chopra We document individual willingness to fight climate change and its behavioral determinants in a large representative sample of US adults. Willingness to fight climate change – as measured through an incentivized donation decision – is highly heterogeneous across the population. Individual beliefs about social norms, economic preferences such as patience and altruism, as well as universal moral values positively predict climate preferences. Moreover, we document systematic misperceptions of prevalent social norms. Respondents vastly underestimate the prevalence of climate- friendly behaviors and norms among their fellow citizens. Providing respondents with correct information causally raises individual willingness to fight climate change as well as individual support for climate policies. The effects are strongest for individuals who are skeptical about the existence and threat of global warming. JEL: D64 D83 D91 Q51 Z13 Date: 2021 URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9175&r=&r=soc

4. Gender Norms and Intimate Partner Violence Gonzalez, Libertad (Universitat Pompeu Fabra); Rodríguez-Planas, Núria (Queens College, CUNY) We study the relevance of gender norms in accounting for the incidence and intensity of domestic violence. We use data for 28 European countries from the 2012 EU survey on violence against women, and focus on first- and second-generation immigrant women. We find that, after controlling for country-of-residence fixed effects, as well as demographic characteristics and other source-country variables, higher gender equality in the country of ancestry is significantly associated with a lower risk of victimization in the host country. This suggests that gender norms may play an important role in explaining the incidence of intimate partner violence. JEL: I1 Z1 Keywords: domestic violence, gender, social norms, immigrants, epidemiological approach Date: 2021–07 URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14550&r=&r=soc

5. The effects of incentives, social norms, and employees' values on work performance Michael Roos; Jessica Reale; Frederik Banning This agent-based model contributes to a theory of corporate culture in which company performance and employees' behaviour result from the interaction between financial incentives, motivational factors and endogenous social norms. Employees' personal values are the main drivers of behaviour. They shape agents' decisions about how much of their working time to devote to individual tasks, cooperative, and shirking activities. The model incorporates two aspects of the management style, analysed both in isolation and combination: (i) monitoring efforts affecting intrinsic motivation, i.e. the firm is either trusting or controlling, and (ii) remuneration schemes affecting extrinsic motivation, i.e. individual or group rewards. The simulations show that financial incentives can (i) lead to inefficient levels of cooperation, and (ii) reinforce value-driven behaviours, amplified by emergent social norms. The company achieves the highest output with a flat wage and a trusting management. Employees that value self-direction highly are pivotal, since they are strongly (de-)motivated by the management style. Date: 2021–07 URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2107.01139&r=&r=soc

6. Gender Norms and Women's Decision to Work: Evidence from Japan Rodríguez-Planas, Núria (Queens College, CUNY); Tanaka, Ryuichi (University of Tokyo) Using individual-level data from the National Family Research of Japan Survey (1999, 2004 and 2009) and exploiting variation in the share of individuals with non-traditional gender norms across birth-cohorts, survey year, education, and prefecture, we find that an increase in the share of individuals with non-traditional beliefs by one standard deviation is associated with an increase in Japanese women's decision to work by 0.016 percentage points, the equivalent of an increase of 3.4% standard deviation. Our measure of non-traditional gender norms is the share of women who disagree with the statement "men should work outside and women should look after the family". As we conduct a battery of sensitivity analyses and placebo tests, our findings suggest an impact of non- traditional norms on Japanese women's decision to work full-time. JEL: J16 J22 Z13 Keywords: gender norms, women's decision to work, culture Date: 2021–07 URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14549&r=&r=soc

7. Field Evidence of the Effects of Pro-sociality and Transparency on COVID-19 App Attractiveness Dooley, Samuel; Turjeman, Dana (University of Michigan); Dickerson, John P; Redmiles, Elissa M. (Microsoft Research) COVID-19 exposure-notification apps have struggled to gain adoption. Existing literature posits as potential causes of this low adoption: privacy concerns, insufficient data transparency, and the type of appeal used to pitch the pro-social behavior of installing the app. In a field experiment, we advertised CovidDefense, Louisiana's COVID-19 exposure-notification app, at the time it was released. We find that all three hypothesized factors -- privacy, data transparency, and appeals framing -- relate to app adoption, even when controlling for age, gender, and community density. Specifically, we find that collective-good appeals are effective in fostering pro-social COVID-19 app behavior in the field. Our results empirically support existing policy guidance on the use of collective-good appeals and offer real-world evidence in the on-going debate on the efficacy of such appeals. Further, we offer nuanced findings regarding the efficacy of transparency -- about both privacy and data collection -- in encouraging health technology adoption and pro-social COVID-19 behavior. Our results may aid in fostering pro-social public-health-related behavior and for the broader debate regarding privacy and data transparency in digital healthcare. Date: 2021–07–22 URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:gm6js&r=&r=soc

This nep-soc issue is ©2021 by Fabio Sabatini. It is provided as is without any express or implied warranty. It may be freely redistributed in whole or in part for any purpose.

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