Fitting Demand and Supply: How Identification Brings Appeals and Motives Together

In this article, participants in two demonstrations are compared. The demonstrations took place in two different squares in Amsterdam, on the same day, opposing the same governmental policy. Everything was the same except the organizers and their appeals: labor unions with an appeal in terms of threatened interests, on the one hand, and an anti-neoliberalism alliance with an appeal in terms of violated principles on the other. We hypothesize that social cleavages shape mobilizing structures and mobilization potentials. Thereby, this study takes an important yet rarely tested assumption in social movement literature seriously: namely, that grievances are socially constructed. If indeed grievances are socially constructed, one would expect that organizers rooted in different cleavages issue different appeals that resonate with different motives. What made individuals who were protesting the same governmental policy participate in one square rather than in the other? Organizational embeddedness, identification, and appeals that resonate with people's grievances provide the answer to that question. To test our hypotheses, we conducted surveys at both demonstrations; survey questionnaires were randomly distributed. The findings supported our assumptions regarding the influence of the diverging mobilizing contexts on the dynamics of protest participation and revealed the crucial role of identity processes.     

The Efficacy of the Social Norms Approach to Substance Abuse Prevention Applied to Fraternity Men

Abstract

Students tend to overestimate the amount of alcohol consumed among their peers and often drink to that imaginary level. The social norms strategy, designed to correct norm misperceptions, has been correlated with a decrease in reported consumption in the general college population. However, it has had little or no impact among Greek students, the group that consumes the most alcohol. The authors investigated and subsequently found three possible flaws in the application of the social norms strategy that may account for the failure to decrease binge drinking among fraternity men: there is no predominant, healthy drinking norm in this population; students are influenced more by people within their network(s) than by others; and binge drinking is the norm in this group and may serve to perpetuate the problem. The findings, though preliminary, provide the first step in developing interventions beyond the social norms approach to address binge drinking among fraternity men.     

The efficacy of the social norms approach to substance abuse prevention applied to fraternity men

Students tend to overestimate the amount of alcohol consumed among their peers and often drink to that imaginary level. The social norms strategy, designed to correct norm misperceptions, has been correlated with a decrease in reported consumption in the general college population. However, it has had little or no impact among Greek students, the group that consumes the most alcohol. The authors investigated and subsequently found three possible flaws in the application of the social norms strategy that may account for the failure to decrease binge drinking among fraternity men: there is no predominant, healthy drinking norm in this population; students are influenced more by people within their network(s) than by others; and binge drinking is the norm in this group and may serve to perpetuate the problem. The findings, though preliminary, provide the first step in developing interventions beyond the social norms approach to address binge drinking among fraternity men.     

Social norms, cognitive dissonance and the timing of marriage

We present a model of courtship in which the timing of marriage is affected by the cognitive dissonance between perceived norms and personal aims. We argue that as long as the family has been the main provider of social protection, marriage has been favoured by strongly felt social norms, and thus people accepted less-than-ideal partners early on in their search in order to minimise the dissonance caused by the non-adherence to the custom. Once the Welfare state has replaced the family, these norms have lost their strength, so that agents can afford the luxury of searching their preferred partners at length without feeling at odds with their social duties. The model yields predictions in line with relevant stylised facts: the raising age of marriage, the prevalence of assortative mating and the common occurrence of divorce in the early years of marriage. We finally discuss the impact of late marriages on fertility, and argue that there need not be negative consequences if the declining role of the family becomes socially accepted, and alternative arrangements are made possible and indeed encouraged by means of an appropriate family policy.     

COMMODITY TAXATION IN WELFARE STATES

Unemployment is a central policy issue in countries with a “generous” welfare system that is hard to reform. This paper addresses why these countries tend to adopt high commodity tax rates in the optimal taxation context. We explore the role of commodity taxation in alleviating moral hazard and hence involuntary unemployment and then provide supportive evidence from a quantitative analysis. Unlike the usual full employment models, at the heart of this paper is a new dimension of distortion, the “between‐states” (employment state vs. unemployment state) consumption choice distortion, which can be dealt with by a certain optimal combination of commodity and income taxation. Our results therefore offer an explanation for the widely observed coexistence of direct and indirect taxation. (JEL D61, D81, H21)     

Investor preferences for positive social externalities and state-owned enterprises’ facilitated access to capital

State-ownership of commercial companies exists around the world, and it is important to understand its effect on financing and investment decisions. Empirically, firms that are partially state-owned (SOE) usually profit from easier access to capital. We propose a novel explanation for this: investors’ social preferences can affect capital allocation if SOEs are perceived as socially beneficial. In support of this we found that people attribute social benefits more to SOEs than to private firms, and their propensity to invest depends on this attitude. Further, in an incentivized modified stochastic public goods game, participants invested in risky options with positive externalities even when the aggregate of private return and externality was lower than the return of an investment option with only private returns. For the case of the EU, we discuss alternative explanations such as state guarantees and political lending in the light of regulations of state aid. We conclude that even if these regulations prohibit direct or indirect state aid for SOEs, state-ownership can affect capital allocation through investors’ social preferences.     

Are rural development programmes socially inclusive? Social inclusion,civic engagement,participation, and social capital: Exploring the differences

Considerable importance is attached to social exclusion/inclusion in recent EU rural development programmes. At the national/regional operation of these programmes groups of people who are not participating are often identified as ‘socially excluded groups’. This article contends that rural development programmes are misinterpreting the social processes of participation and consequently labelling some groups as socially excluded when they are not. This is partly because of the interchangeable and confused use of the concepts social inclusion, social capital and civic engagement, and partly because of the presumption that to participate is the default position. Three groups identified as socially excluded groups in Northern Ireland are considered. It is argued that a more careful analysis of what social inclusion means, what civic engagement means, and why participation is presumed to be the norm, leads to a different conclusion about who is excluded. This has both theoretical and policy relevance for the much used concept of social inclusion.     

Social norms, rationales and policies: reframing farmland protection in Israel

This paper analyzes the role of legitimization processes in the struggle over farmland protection policies in Israel. In the early sixties a centralized farmland protection program was institutionalized, curtailing private land owners‘ and leaseholders’ property rights on farmlands. The legitimacy accorded to such measures is explained as a function of the congruence between social norms, power structure and dominant ideology at the time. Then, the paper follows the changes in power, ideology, social norms, sanctioned discourse and the role of agriculture in the economy. These changes undermined the basis of the farmland protection rationales, and led to a crisis of legitimacy in the early nineties. As a result of several institutional and policy shifts in the early nineties, a time of rapid growth, concern shifted to the implications of growth for the future of open spaces. This concern over the loss of positive externalities was shared by environmentalists, urban and exurban consumption interests, planners and several elements within the rural establishment. As a result a new set of plans was introduced. Focusing on the central district, where the most severe development pressures are felt, the paper compares the sanctioned discourse and use of rationales in the new plans and documents to those of previous plans. These plans focus on averting the loss of positive externalities, rather than productive capacity, and are couched in economic terms, rather than ideological terms, reflecting the shift in language of the sanctioned discourse. It shows that the choice of rationales for legitimizing countryside conservation reflects the struggle over rural landscapes, as the rationales are used to cobble a coalition of planners, environmentalists, farmers, urbanites and exurbanites, against a powerful development coalition.     

Can cultural consumption increase future earnings? Exploring the economic returns to cultural capital

Cultural consumption is often viewed as a form of embodied cultural capital which can be converted into economic rewards (e.g., earnings) because such practices increase the likelihood of moving into more advantaged social positions. However, quantitative evidence supporting this theory remains uncertain because it is often unable to rule out alternative explanations. Cultural consumption appears to influence hiring decisions in some elite firms, in both the US and the UK, but it is unclear whether these processes are applicable to other professional occupations and other labour market processes, such as promotions. We examine these processes using data from Understanding Society, an individual‐level panel survey conducted in the UK, allowing us to explore whether cultural consumption predicts future earnings, upward social mobility and promotions. People who consume a larger number of cultural activities are more likely to earn higher wages in the future, to be upwardly socially mobile, and to be promoted. Cultural consumption, then, can function as cultural capital in some labour market settings, potentially contributing to the reproduction of income inequality between generations.     

EXAMINING EMOTION AS DISCOURSE: Emotion Codes and Presidential Speeches Justifying War

Observers commonly argue that emotional appeal is critical for persuasive communication in mass media, science and social policy hearings, social problem advocacy, and politics. This raises a practical question: How can appeals to emotion be accomplished in mass audiences characterized by heterogeneity? I explore this question by theorizing emotional persuasion to be encouraged by the artful use of “emotion codes,” which are sets of socially circulating ideas about which emotions are appropriate to feel when, where, and toward whom or what, as well as how emotions should be outwardly expressed. As an illustration, I examine an instance of presidential communication surrounding war, the “Story of September 11” crafted by President George W. Bush in his first four nationally televised speeches after the events of that day. I explore how this melodramatic tale contains multiple and interlocking reflections of emotion codes which encourage audience members to feel in particular ways about the Good American victim and hero and the evil terrorist villain who are the primary story characters. In the conclusion I speculate about ways in which deploying elements of socially circulating ideas about emotion might encourage persuasion in large heterogeneous audiences as well as the necessities for examining emotion as discourse in other arenas of social life. My goal is to develop a model for empirically examining emotional meaning as social phenomena.     

A Model of Parental Demand for Child Labor with High Fertility Norms

This paper sets out a model to examine how social norms regarding fertility influence parental choice between child labor and child's education. The parent is modeled as a social animal who derives utility from conformity with behavior of other members of the society. In deciding on the number of children, parents internalize the gain of utility from conformity to the norm for fertility. The model investigates the influence of the social element of conformity on the education decision for children and the prevalence of child labor. Social utility from conformity with exogenous social norms of high fertility increases the prevalence of child labor. This social norm can decrease the effectiveness of public policy aimed at encouraging education in place of child labor.     

Fake News Is Real: The Significance and Sources of Disbelief in Mainstream Media in Trump’s America

Are appeals to discredit mainstream media reporting of political news in the guise of “fake news” merely a diversion from more fundamental threats to democratic politics and policymaking? Or is the emerging belief in “fake news” itself a looming threat? Using data from the Voter Study Group’s panel survey, we examine the relationship between disbelief in mainstream media and a wide range of social attitudes and policy preferences. We find that in December 2016, just after Trump’s election, belief in fake news wields an outsized influence, independent of partisanship, ideology, media consumption, and other established foundations of public opinion. The effects of fake news beliefs are especially pronounced on key elements of Trump’s rhetoric as candidate and as president—hostility toward immigrants, racial and religious minorities, gender equality, perceptions of America’s “greatness,” and even support for democratic norms and institutions itself. We also find some evidence that by January 2019, the belief in fake news has become even more focally associated with Trump. These findings portend the possibility of an emerging exclusionary, populist variant of American conservatism, of which disbelief in media institutions is a key component.     

CONSUMPTION EXTERNALITIES AND MONETARY POLICY WITH LIMITED ASSET MARKET PARTICIPATION

This article explores the interaction between consumption externalities and limited asset market participation (LAMP) in the standard New‐Keynesian model. We assess the performance of simple Taylor‐type interest rate rules with respect to (a) equilibrium determinacy, (b) the model's ability to simultaneously generate output and inflation volatility similar to the pre‐Volcker era, and (c) the model's response to a technology shock. We find that when individual preferences are affected by average household consumption (Aggregate Consumption Externality), stronger externalities increase the range of LAMP for which multiple equilibria arise even if the policy rule satisfies the Taylor principle. The interaction of LAMP and externalities can generate vast inflation/output relative volatility in line with the one observed in the data in the 1970s. According to our analysis, consumption externalities also affect the responses of endogenous variables to total factor productivity shocks. (JEL E4, E5)     

A tax can nudge: The impact of an environmentally motivated bonus/malus fiscal system on transport preferences

Bonus-malus taxes appear to have been successful in encouraging people to change to less polluting travel options in France (e.g. the tax on large and small engined cars). We hypothesize that they have three possible effects on consumer behaviour. The positive effects are: (1) a price effect (the less polluting option is subsidized and the polluting option is taxed); and (2) a social norm effect (the less polluting option is classified as pro-social and the polluting option as antisocial). The negative effect (3) is that they may decrease intrinsic motivation (crowding out). We provide an initial test of this tripartite model using survey data on students given a choice between taking the plane or the train between Toulouse to Paris. The first study shows that imposing a hypothetical bonus-malus tax has both a price effect (relative to a control condition where only the norm justifying the tax is presented) and a norm effect (relative to a control condition in which only the corresponding price difference is presented without mention of the tax). The second study presents a set of choices where the environmental norms and price differences are held constant, but the size of the contribution of the bonus-malus tax to the final price of each option is varied. This study confirms our prediction that a larger bonus-malus subsidy/tax reduces propensity to choose the less polluting option (i.e. the train). As the positive effects outweigh the negative effects in most of the choices studied, we conclude that bonus-malus taxes constitute a promising policy instrument.     

Social Transformation in China and the Development of Social Assessment

Since the late 1990s, China has been pursuing a policy of economic expansion with extensive investment in large-scale infrastructure projects. The social side effects of these projects—such as involuntary resettlement—are but the tip of the iceberg of so-called externalities of economic transformation. This paper introduces the background and methodology of social assessment in China and argues that the assessment of social risks in development projects and programmes, undertaken as an integral part of a larger complex of future-oriented sustainability strategies in China, can be analysed as particular ‘governmental technologies’ in the sense of the Foucauldian school.     

On the (sequential) majority choice of public good size and location

This article studies majority voting over the size and location of a public good when voters differ both in income and in their preferences for the public good location. Public good provision is financed either by a lump sum tax or by a proportional income tax. We analyze both the simultaneous and the sequential determinations of the public good’s size and location. We show that, while the choice of the type of public good follows the traditional median logic, the majoritarian determination of the taxation rate need not coincide with the preferences of a median income citizen. With lump sum financing, income heterogeneity plays no role and the sequential equilibrium consists of the median location together with the public good level most-preferred by the individual located at the median distance from the median. This policy bundle also constitutes an equilibrium with simultaneous voting in the special case of a uniform bivariate distribution of individuals’ income and location. With proportional taxation, there is no policy equilibrium with simultaneous voting. We offer a complete characterization of the equations describing the sequential equilibrium in the general case and we show why and how our results depart from those most-preferred by the median income individual located at the median distance from the median. We also compare these majority voting allocations with the socially optimal one.     

Norm formation in social influence networks

I propose a mechanism of norm formation and maintenance that combines classical theory in social psychology on attitudes and social comparisons with a formal network theory of social influence. Underlying the formation of norms is the ubiquitous belief that there is a correct response for every situation and an abiding interest for persons to base their responses on these correct foundations. Given such a belief, a normative evaluation of a feeling, thought or action is likely to arise when persons perceive that their positive or negative attitudinal evaluation is shared by one or more influential others. If interpersonal agreements validate attitudes and transform attitudes into norms, then the development of a theory of norm formation may draw on extant “combinatorial” theories of consensus production that describe how shared attitudes are produced and maintained in groups. The network theory of social influence that I employ is one such combinatorial approach. An important sociological implication of this network theory is that the content of norms must be consistent with the social stratification (or more general pattern of inequality) of interpersonal influences in a group. I illustrate the theory with an analysis of Roethlisberger and Dickson’s (1939) classic observations on the Bank Wiring Observation Room.