scholarly journals Social Networks as Contract Enforcement: Evidence from a Lab Experiment in the Field

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 43-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arun G. Chandrasekhar ◽  
Cynthia Kinnan ◽  
Horacio Larreguy

Lack of well-functioning formal institutions leads to reliance on social networks to enforce informal contracts. Social proximity and network centrality may affect cooperation. To assess the extent to which networks substitute for enforcement, we conducted high-stakes games across 34 Indian villages. We randomized subjects’ partners and whether contracts were enforced to estimate how partners’ relative network position differentially matters across contracting environments. While socially close pairs cooperate even without enforcement, distant pairs do not. Individuals with more central partners behave more cooperatively without enforcement. Capacity for cooperation in the absence of contract enforcement therefore depends on the subjects’ network position. (JEL C93, D86, K12, O15, O17, Z13)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joël W. Jameson ◽  
Steven W. Kembel ◽  
Denis Réale

ABSTRACTMetacommunity theory predicts that strongly connected individuals will harbour similar gut microbiomes (GMs) and affiliating with more individuals should increase GM diversity. Additionally, cross-species bacterial transmission may play a role in how interspecific interactions affect host community dynamics. We tracked sympatric mice (Peromyscus maniculatus) and voles (Myodes gapperi) and constructed social networks for each species and both species together. We tested whether: 1) similarity in GM composition between individuals correlates with their social proximity within and across species; 2) GM diversity correlates with a host’s number of conspecific or heterospecific neighbours. We could not differentiate associations between GM composition and mouse social proximity or habitat. In voles, social proximity explained part of the GM composition. GM composition associated with interspecific social proximity, and mouse GM diversity correlated with number of vole neighbours. Contributions of host-host bacterial transmission to the GM partly follow metacommunity theory but depend on host species.


2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (6) ◽  
pp. 2033-2038 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yang Yang ◽  
Nitesh V. Chawla ◽  
Brian Uzzi

Many leaders today do not rise through the ranks but are recruited directly out of graduate programs into leadership positions. We use a quasi-experiment and instrumental-variable regression to understand the link between students’ graduate school social networks and placement into leadership positions of varying levels of authority. Our data measure students’ personal characteristics and academic performance, as well as their social network information drawn from 4.5 million email correspondences among hundreds of students who were placed directly into leadership positions. After controlling for students’ personal characteristics, work experience, and academic performance, we find that students’ social networks strongly predict placement into leadership positions. For males, the higher a male student’s centrality in the school-wide network, the higher his leadership-job placement will be. Men with network centrality in the top quartile have an expected job placement level that is 1.5 times greater than men in the bottom quartile of centrality. While centrality also predicts women’s placement, high-placing women students have one thing more: an inner circle of predominantly female contacts who are connected to many nonoverlapping third-party contacts. Women with a network centrality in the top quartile and a female-dominated inner circle have an expected job placement level that is 2.5 times greater than women with low centrality and a male-dominated inner circle. Women who have networks that resemble those of high-placing men are low-placing, despite having leadership qualifications comparable to high-placing women.


Author(s):  
Patrick O’Rourke

This article presents a study of Livonian social networks in the beginning of the 20th century during a time of language shift. In this study, I examine whether the Livonian communities were experiencing a language shift irrespective of the population displacements during the two World Wars, which has often been given as the main reason for the Livonian language shift to Latvian. I apply the Network Strength Scale to examine if social network centrality played a role in the language shift. The study focuses on the Livonian villages of Vaid and Sīkrõg and social factors relevant to the mapping of the social network are taken from Edgar Vaalgamaa’s survey in 1935–1937. The results indicate that generational differences played a more important role than centrality in the social network in determining Latvian influence.Kokkuvõte. Patrick O’Rourke: Liivi keele sotsiaalsed võrgustikud ja keele vahetus. Artikkel tutvustab uurimust Kuramaa liivlaste sotsiaalsetest võrgustikest 20. sajandi esimesel poolel, kui keelevahetus liivi keelelt läti keelele oli juba alanud. Autor vaatleb, kuivõrd liivi kogukondades sõltus keelevahetus kahe maailmasõja aegsest elanikkonna deporteerimisest, mida on tavaliselt peetud keelevahetuse põhjuseks. Rakendatakse suhtlusvõrgustike tugevuse analüüsi, et selgitada, kas isiku keskne asend sotsiaalses võrgustikus oli keelevahetuse jaoks oluline. Uurimus keskendub liivi küladele Vaid ja Sīkrõg. Sotsiaalsete võrgustike kaardistamiseks on valitud olulised tegurid Edgar Vaalgamaa poolt aastatel 1935–1937 läbi viidud küsitluse põhjal. Tulemused näitavad, et läti keele mõju ulatus sõltub rohkem põlvkondlikest erinevustest kui isiku asendist sotsiaalses võrgustikus. Artikkel põhineb autori magistritööl, mis on kaitstud 2016. aastal Yorki Ülikoolis.Märksõnad: ajalooline lingvistika, sotsiolingvistika, sotsiaalsed võrgustikud, keelevahetus, liivi keelKubbõvõttõks. Patrick O’Rourke: Līvõ kīel sotsiālizt võrgõd ja kīel vaidimi. Kēra tuņšlõb Kurāmō līvõd sotsiāliži võrgidi 20. āigastsadā ežmizõs pūolsõ, ku vȯļ irgõn līvõ kīel vaidimi lețkīelkõks. Kēratiji vaņțlõb, kui ulzõ ajjimi kōd mōilmasuodā āigal mȯjīz kīel vaidimiz līvõd kubgõņis. Sīe pierāst um kõlbātõd rovst võrgõd viššit analīz. Analīz abkõks um seļțõd, või se, ku rištīngõn um vȯnd sidāmi kūož sotsiālizt võrgõd sizāl, um vȯnd ka tǟdzi kīel vaidimiz āigal. Tuņšlimizõs amā jemīņ ātõ vaņțõltõd līvõd kilād Vaid ja Sīkrõg. Sotsiālizt võrgõd tǟtimiz pierāst um kȭlbatõd Edgar Vālgamō 1935.–1937. āigast tīedõd rovkizzimi. Tuņšlimi nägțõb, ku lețkīel mȯjjimi jemīņ um sidtõd sugkazāmõks, äbku rištīng kūožõks sotsiālizt võrgõd sizāl. Kēra alīzõks um kēratijiz magistõrtīe, mis um kaitstõd 2016. āigasts York Iļīzskūols.


2001 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 1177-1203 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E Rauch

The first two main sections survey the roles of transnational networks in alleviating problems of contract enforcement and providing information about trading opportunities, respectively. The next section covers how domestic networks influence international trade through their impact on domestic market structure. Two overarching questions unify these sections: how do networks affect efficiency, and will networks grow or shrink in importance for international trade over time. The last main sections develop research agendas for two less studied areas: the role of intermediaries who can connect foreign agents to domestic networks and the ability of transnational production networks to facilitate technology transfer.


Author(s):  
Benjamin Golub ◽  
Evan Sadler

This survey covers models of how agents update behaviors and beliefs using information conveyed through social connections. The chapter begins with sequential social learning models, in which each agent makes a decision once and for all after observing a subset of prior decisions; the discussion is organized around the concepts of diffusion and aggregation of information. Next, the chapter presents the DeGroot framework of average-based repeated updating, whose long- and medium-run dynamics can be completely characterized in terms of measures of network centrality and segregation. Finally, the chapter turns to various models of repeated updating that feature richer optimizing behavior, and concludes by urging the development of network learning theories that can deal adequately with the observed phenomenon of persistent disagreement.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristen S. Morrow ◽  
Hunter Glanz ◽  
Putu Oka Ngakan ◽  
Erin P. Riley

AbstractHuman-wildlife encounters are becoming increasingly frequent across the globe, often leading people to interact with and feed wild animals and impacting animal behaviour and ecology. Although the nature of human-wildlife interactions has been well documented across a number of species, we still have limited understanding as to why some individual animals interact more frequently with humans than others. Additionally, we lack a comprehensive understanding of how these interactions influence animal social networks. Using behavioural data from a group of moor macaque monkeys (Macaca maura), we used permutation-based linear regression analyses to understand how life history and social network factors jointly explain interindividual variation in tendency to interact with humans along a provincial road in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. As our study group spent only a portion of their time in proximity to humans, we also examined how social network structure changes in response to human presence by comparing social networks in the forest to those along the road. We found that sex, individual network position, and associate network position interact in complex ways to influence individual behaviour. Individual variation in tendency to be along the road caused social networks to become less cohesive when in proximity to humans. This study demonstrates that nuanced intragroup analyses are necessary to fully understand and address conservation issues relating to human-wildlife interactions.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 651-676 ◽  
Author(s):  
KARTHIKEYA NARAPARAJU

AbstractIn developing countries, lack of formal contract enforcement mechanisms is compensated by informal governance enforced through trust, kinship, reputation, etc. This paper focuses on one such setting in India's urban informal economy: the ‘day labour’ market for casual labour. We survey seven such markets in Navi Mumbai (a city on the outskirts of Mumbai), and find considerable incidence of contract enforcement problems in the form of employers reneging on wage payments to labourers. We find that payments to labourers with access to social networks and a record of work done are less likely to be reneged. Further, consistent with the literature on the limits of informal enforcement, we find that labourers in large markets, with greater linguistic and caste-based diversity, are more likely to be reneged. We argue that interventions aimed at facilitating access to formal mechanisms might help overcome some of the limitations with informal enforcement.


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