This paper seeks to explain why billions of people in developing countries either have no access to electricity or lack a reliable supply. We present evidence that these shortfalls are a consequence ...of electricity being treated as a right and that this sets off a vicious four-step circle. In step 1, because a social norm has developed that all deserve power independent of payment, subsidies, theft, and nonpayment are widely tolerated. In step 2, electricity distribution companies lose money with each unit of electricity sold and in total lose large sums of money. In step 3, government-owned distribution companies ration supply to limit losses by restricting access and hours of supply. In step 4, power supply is no longer governed by market forces and the link between payment and supply is severed, thus reducing customers' incentives to pay. The equilibrium outcome is uneven and sporadic access that undermines growth.
Although sociologists have frequently touched on ideas related to brokerage in their research, brokerage is rarely considered a central concept in the discipline's theoretical or analytic arsenal. ...Theoretically, brokerage is one of a small number of mechanisms by which disconnected or isolated individuals (or groups) can interact economically, politically, and socially. Across substantive domains, we are particularly struck by a dual aspect of brokerage: On the one hand, brokerage has the capacity to ease social interaction, enhance economic activity, and facilitate political development. On the other hand, brokerage often breeds exploitation, the pursuit of personal profit, corruption, and the accumulation of power; through these and other processes, brokerage can exacerbate existing inequalities. In this review, we make the case for elevating the concept of brokerage to a more prominent place in the sociological canon. Brokerage's significance stems from its potential for macro-level consequences, which are revealed primarily through its impact on the permeability of group boundaries. However, because brokerage is built from informal, personal relationships, understanding it requires close attention to micro-level relations and social psychological processes.
This meta-analysis provides a synthesis of 70 studies on the relationship between cultural intelligence (CQ) and six work-related outcomes. By applying the mutualism perspective and using commonality ...analysis, we propose a theoretical perspective and empirically explore the joint effects of two and three sets of CQ dimensions on work-related outcomes. We find that the CQ dimensions mediate the relationships between personality traits and work-related outcomes, and that they have incremental validity beyond these traits and a comprehensive set of established predictors for all outcomes. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory development and provide directions for future research.
A central assumption in economics is that people misreport their private information if this is to their material benefit. Several recent models depart from this assumption and posit that some people ...do not lie or at least do not lie maximally. These models invoke many different underlying motives including intrinsic lying costs, altruism, efficiency concerns, or conditional cooperation. To provide an empirically-validated microfoundation for these models, it is crucial to understand the relevance of the different potential motives. We measure the extent of lying costs among a representative sample of the German population by calling them at home. In our setup, participants have a clear monetary incentive to misreport, misreporting cannot be detected, reputational concerns are negligible and altruism, efficiency concerns or conditional cooperation cannot play a role. Yet, we find that aggregate reporting behavior is close to the expected truthful distribution suggesting that lying costs are large and widespread. Further lab experiments show that this result is not driven by the mode of communication.
•We conduct a truth-telling experiment with a representative population sample at home.•Participants have clear monetary incentives to misreport; detection is impossible.•Aggregate reporting is close to the expected truthful distribution.•Our results suggest that lying costs are strong and widespread.•Additional lab experiments explore what shapes lying costs.
Boschma R. Towards an evolutionary perspective on regional resilience, Regional Studies. This paper proposes an evolutionary perspective on regional resilience. It conceptualizes resilience not just ...as the ability of a region to accommodate shocks, but extends it to the long-term ability of regions to develop new growth paths. A comprehensive view on regional resilience is proposed in which history is key to understand how regions develop new growth paths, and in which industrial, network and institutional dimensions of resilience come together. Resilient regions are capable of overcoming a trade-off between adaptation and adaptability, as embodied in related and unrelated variety, loosely coupled networks and loosely coherent institutional structures.
Although heterogeneity in consumption communities is pervasive, there is little
understanding of its impact on communities. This study shows how heterogeneous
communities operate and interact with ...the marketplace. Specifically, the authors
draw on actor-network theory, conceptualizing community as a network of
heterogeneous actors (i.e., individuals, institutions, and resources), and
examine the interplay of these actors in a mainstream activity-based consumption
community—the distance running community. Findings, derived from a
multimethod investigation, show that communities can preserve continuity even
when heterogeneity operates as a destabilizing force. Continuity preserves when
community members depend on each other for social and economic resources: a
dependency that promotes the use of frame alignment practices. These practices
enable the community to (re)stabilize, reproduce, and reform over time. The
authors also highlight the overlapping roles of consumers and producers and
develop a dimensional characterization of communities that helps bridge prior
research on brand communities, consumption subcultures, and consumer tribes.
•We study the role of social networks in peer-to-peer lending on the Internet.•Borrowers with social ties are more likely to get funded and with lower interest rates.•Most borrowers with social ties ...do not perform better ex post.•Lenders may not fully understand the relationship between social ties and borrower quality.•We find evidence of gaming on borrower participation in social networks.
We examine whether social networks facilitate online markets using data from a leading peer-to-peer lending website. We find that borrowers with social ties are consistently more likely to have their loans funded and receive lower interest rates; however, most borrowers with social ties are more likely to pay late or default. We provide evidence that these findings are driven by lenders not fully understanding the relationship between social ties and unobserved borrower quality. Overall, our findings suggest caution for using online social networks as a signal of quality in anonymous transactions.
We present results from the first study to examine the causal impact of early-childhood education on the social preferences of children. We compare children who, at 3–4 years old, were randomized ...into either a full-time preschool, a parenting program, or a control group. We returned to the children when they reached 6–8 years of age and conducted a series of incentivized experiments to elicit their social preferences. We find that early-childhood education has a strong causal impact on social preferences. Our findings highlight the importance of taking a broad perspective when designing and evaluating early-childhood educational programs.
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