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An Experimental Approach to Social Capital in South Africa

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  • Carter, Michael R.

    (U of Wisconsin)

  • Castillo, Marco

    (U of Newcastle upon Tyne)

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    Abstract

    This paper measures the social capital of trust and trustworthiness in South Africa using an experimental protocol designed to distinguish these norms from altruism. Experimental participants played multiple roles, making it impossible to construct theoretically-grounded norm measures based on an individual's play across roles. Two-stage estimates of a social interaction model of norms identifies the presence of endogenous social effects, indicating that communities can be meaningfully typified as having and maintaining distinct normative environments. However, in contrast to studies that rely on less direct social capital measures, we do not find that trust boosts mean household living standards when controlling for the endogeneity of norms.

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    File URL: http://www.aae.wisc.edu/pubs/sps/pdf/stpap448.pdf
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    Bibliographic Info

    Paper provided by University of Wisconsin, Agricultural and Applied Economics in its series Staff Paper Series with number 448.

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    Date of creation: Aug 2003
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    Handle: RePEc:ecl:wisagr:448

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    1. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gaechter, . "Fairness and Retaliation: The Economics of Reciprocitys," IEW - Working Papers 040, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    2. James Andreoni & Lise Vesterlund, 2001. "Which Is The Fair Sex? Gender Differences In Altruism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 116(1), pages 293-312, February.
    3. Eckel, Catherine C. & Grossman, Philip J., 1996. "Altruism in Anonymous Dictator Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 181-191, October.
    4. Gary Charness & Matthew Rabin, 1999. "Social preferences: Some simple tests and a new model," Economics Working Papers 441, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jan 2000.
    5. Akerlof, George A & Yellen, Janet L, 1990. "The Fair Wage-Effort Hypothesis and Unemployment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 105(2), pages 255-83, May.
    6. Marcel Fafchamps, 2002. "Returns to social network capital among traders," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 54(2), pages 173-206, April.
    7. Nancy Buchan & Rachel Croson, 1999. "Gender and Culture: International Experimental Evidence from Trust Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 386-391, May.
    8. Axel Ockenfels & Gary E. Bolton, 2000. "ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 166-193, March.
    9. Donald Cox & Zekeriya Eser & Emmanuel Jimenez, 1996. "Motives for Private Transfers over the Life Cycle: An Analytical Framework and Evidence for Peru," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 327., Boston College Department of Economics.
    10. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Andrew F. Newman, 1990. "Occupational Choice and the Process of Development," Discussion Papers 911, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    11. Eckel, Catherine C & Grossman, Philip J, 1998. "Are Women Less Selfish Than Men? Evidence from Dictator Experiments," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(448), pages 726-35, May.
    12. Abigail Barr, 1999. "Familiarity and trust: An experimental investigation," CSAE Working Paper Series 1999-23, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    13. Burks, Stephen V. & Carpenter, Jeffrey P. & Verhoogen, Eric, 2003. "Playing both roles in the trust game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 195-216, June.
    14. Eswaran, Mukesh & Kotwal, Ashok, 1986. "Access to Capital and Agrarian Production Organisation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 96(382), pages 482-98, June.
    15. Berg Joyce & Dickhaut John & McCabe Kevin, 1995. "Trust, Reciprocity, and Social History," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 122-142, July.
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    Cited by:
    1. Mogues, Tewodaj & Carter, Michael R., 2003. "Social Capital and Incentive Compatibility: Modelling the Accumulation and Use of Social Collateral," Staff Paper Series 460, University of Wisconsin, Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    2. Steven N. Durlauf & Marcel Fafchamps, 2004. "Social Capital," NBER Working Papers 10485, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
      • Durlauf, Steven N. & Fafchamps, Marcel, 2005. "Social Capital," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 26, pages 1639-1699 Elsevier.
    3. Burns, Justine, 2006. "Racial stereotypes, stigma and trust in post-apartheid South Africa," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 805-821, September.
    4. Tanaka, Tomomi & Camerer, Colin & Nguyen, Quang, 2009. "Measuring Norms of Redistributive Transfers: Trust Experiments and Survey Data from Vietnam," MPRA Paper 16119, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Juan Camilo Cardenas & Jeffrey P. Carpenter, 2005. "Experiments and Economic Development: Lessons from Field Labs in the Developing World," Middlebury College Working Paper Series 0505, Middlebury College, Department of Economics.
    6. Juan Camilo Cardenas & Jeffrey Carpenter, 2008. "Behavioural Development Economics: Lessons from Field Labs in the Developing World," The Journal of Development Studies, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 44(3), pages 311-338.
    7. Omar Sene, 2012. "Trust as a Proxy for the Ability to Produce Local Public Goods : Testing Different Measures," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 12041, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    8. Alvin Etang & David Fielding & Stephen Knowles, 2011. "Does trust extend beyond the village? Experimental trust and social distance in Cameroon," Experimental Economics, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 15-35, March.
    9. Máximo Torero & Marco Castillo & Ragan Petrie, 2008. "Ethnic and Social Barriers to Cooperation: Experiments Studying the Extent and Nature of Discrimination in Urban Peru," Research Department Publications 3246, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    10. Tomomi Tanaka & Colin F Camerer & Quang Nguyen, 2006. "Poverty, politics, and preferences: Field Experiments and survey data from Vietnam," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000001099, UCLA Department of Economics.
    11. Schechter, Laura, 2007. "Traditional trust measurement and the risk confound: An experiment in rural Paraguay," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 272-292, February.
    12. Janssens, Wendy, 2010. "Women's Empowerment and the Creation of Social Capital in Indian Villages," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 974-988, July.
    13. Omar Sene, 2012. "Trust as a Proxy for the Ability to Produce Local Public Goods: Testing Different Measures," Post-Print halshs-00717141, HAL.

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