Pub Date : 1900-01-01DOI: 10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2023-03
Š. Mikula, T. Reggiani, F. Sabatini
We exploit a historical experiment that occurred in Czechoslovakia after World War Two to study the drivers of social capital accumulation in an extremely unfavorable environment. Between 1945 and 1948, the Sudetenland became the scene of ethnic cleansing, with the expulsion of nearly three million German speakers and the simultaneous influx of nearly two million resettlers. Focusing on the areas where at least 90 % of the population was forced to leave, we show that the municipalities hosting a church built before 1945 developed significantly higher social capital under the communist rule, which persisted after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia and the current days.
{"title":"The long-term impact of religion on social capital: lessons from post-war Czechoslovakia","authors":"Š. Mikula, T. Reggiani, F. Sabatini","doi":"10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2023-03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2023-03","url":null,"abstract":"We exploit a historical experiment that occurred in Czechoslovakia after World War Two to study the drivers of social capital accumulation in an extremely unfavorable environment. Between 1945 and 1948, the Sudetenland became the scene of ethnic cleansing, with the expulsion of nearly three million German speakers and the simultaneous influx of nearly two million resettlers. Focusing on the areas where at least 90 % of the population was forced to leave, we show that the municipalities hosting a church built before 1945 developed significantly higher social capital under the communist rule, which persisted after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia and the current days.","PeriodicalId":188529,"journal":{"name":"MUNI ECON Working Papers","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127415762","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We study how the diffusion of broadband Internet affects social capital using two data sets from the UK. Our empirical strategy exploits the fact that broadband access has long depended on customers’ position in the voice telecommunication infrastructure that was designed in the 1930s. The actual speed of an Internet connection, in fact, rapidly decays with the distance of the dwelling from the specific node of the network serving its area. Merging unique information about the topology of the voice network with geocoded longitudinal data about individual social capital, we show that access to broadband Internet caused a significant decline in forms of offline interaction and civic engagement. Overall, our results suggest that broadband penetration substantially crowded out several aspects of social capital.
{"title":"Broadband Internet and Social Capital","authors":"Geraci Andrea, Nardotto Mattia, Reggiani Tommaso, Sabatini Fabio","doi":"10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2018-01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2018-01","url":null,"abstract":"We study how the diffusion of broadband Internet affects social capital using two data sets from the UK. Our empirical strategy exploits the fact that broadband access has long depended on customers’ position in the voice telecommunication infrastructure that was designed in the 1930s. The actual speed of an Internet connection, in fact, rapidly decays with the distance of the dwelling from the specific node of the network serving its area. Merging unique information about the topology of the voice network with geocoded longitudinal data about individual social capital, we show that access to broadband Internet caused a significant decline in forms of offline interaction and civic engagement. Overall, our results suggest that broadband penetration substantially crowded out several aspects of social capital.","PeriodicalId":188529,"journal":{"name":"MUNI ECON Working Papers","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115507871","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1900-01-01DOI: 10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2021-07
S. Heap, Levi Eugenio, Ramalingam Abhijit
Using a dictator game experiment, we examine whether the introduction of group identities affects giving. Group identities can activate feelings of in-group love and out-group hate to create an in-group bias. In addition, group identities may spawn social sanctions that are designed to reinforce this in-group bias. We find that the aggregate effect on giving of group identities alone tends to be positive but depends on the relative size of two sub-sets of the subject pool: those who exhibit an in-group bias and those who do not. With the latter, the introduction of group identities has no effect on giving. With the former, the in-group bias arises from both in-group love and out-group hate and with interactions skewed towards own group members, in-group love will dominate to produce an increase in gifts. Sanctions too depend for their aggregate effect on the relative size of these two sub-sets in the population, but in the opposite way. This is because in-group biased preferences are crowded-in by the sanctions among the hitherto equal givers and in-group biased preferences are crowded-out among those who would otherwise exhibit the in-group bias.
{"title":"Group identification and giving: in-group love, out-group hate and their crowding out","authors":"S. Heap, Levi Eugenio, Ramalingam Abhijit","doi":"10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2021-07","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2021-07","url":null,"abstract":"Using a dictator game experiment, we examine whether the introduction of group identities affects giving. Group identities can activate feelings of in-group love and out-group hate to create an in-group bias. In addition, group identities may spawn social sanctions that are designed to reinforce this in-group bias. We find that the aggregate effect on giving of group identities alone tends to be positive but depends on the relative size of two sub-sets of the subject pool: those who exhibit an in-group bias and those who do not. With the latter, the introduction of group identities has no effect on giving. With the former, the in-group bias arises from both in-group love and out-group hate and with interactions skewed towards own group members, in-group love will dominate to produce an increase in gifts. Sanctions too depend for their aggregate effect on the relative size of these two sub-sets in the population, but in the opposite way. This is because in-group biased preferences are crowded-in by the sanctions among the hitherto equal givers and in-group biased preferences are crowded-out among those who would otherwise exhibit the in-group bias.","PeriodicalId":188529,"journal":{"name":"MUNI ECON Working Papers","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115198674","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Experimental social scientists working at research-intensive institutions deal inevitably with subjects who have most likely participated in previous experiments. It is an important methodological question to know whether participants that have acquired a high level of lab-sophistication show altered pro-social behavioral patterns. In this paper, we focus both on the potential effect of the subjects’ lab-sophistication, and on the role of the knowledge about the level of lab-sophistication of the other participants. Our main findings show that while lab-sophistication per se does not significantly affect pro-social behaviour, for sophisticated sub-jects the knowledge about thecounterpart’s level of (un)sophistication may systematically alter their choices. This result should induce caution among experimenters about whether, in their settings, information about lab-sophistication can be inferred by the participants, due to the characteristics of the recruitment mechanisms, the management of the experimental sessions or to other contextual clues.
{"title":"Lab-Sophistication: Does Repeated Participation in Laboratory Experiments Affect Pro-Social Behaviour?","authors":"Medda Tiziana, Pelligra Vittorio, Reggiani Tommaso","doi":"10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2021-06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2021-06","url":null,"abstract":"Experimental social scientists working at research-intensive institutions deal inevitably with subjects who have most likely participated in previous experiments. It is an important methodological question to know whether participants that have acquired a high level of lab-sophistication show altered pro-social behavioral patterns. In this paper, we focus both on the potential effect of the subjects’ lab-sophistication, and on the role of the knowledge about the level of lab-sophistication of the other participants. Our main findings show that while lab-sophistication per se does not significantly affect pro-social behaviour, for sophisticated sub-jects the knowledge about thecounterpart’s level of (un)sophistication may systematically alter their choices. This result should induce caution among experimenters about whether, in their settings, information about lab-sophistication can be inferred by the participants, due to the characteristics of the recruitment mechanisms, the management of the experimental sessions or to other contextual clues.","PeriodicalId":188529,"journal":{"name":"MUNI ECON Working Papers","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123777065","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1900-01-01DOI: 10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2022-01
Mikula Štěpán, Montag Josef
This paper tests for discriminatory treatment of the Roma minority by public officials in the Czech Republic. Our focus is on public servants at local job centers whose job is to advise unemployed individuals and process applications for unemployment benefit. Our experimental design facilitates testing for the presence of each of two key (but intertwined) drivers of discrimination: ethnic animus and socioeconomic status prejudice. We find substantial evidence for the presence of discrimination based on both of these sources. Since Roma tend to have lower socioeconomic status, the two sources of discrimination compound for them.
{"title":"Roma and Bureaucrats: A Field Experiment in the Czech Republic","authors":"Mikula Štěpán, Montag Josef","doi":"10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2022-01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2022-01","url":null,"abstract":"This paper tests for discriminatory treatment of the Roma minority by public officials in the Czech Republic. Our focus is on public servants at local job centers whose job is to advise unemployed individuals and process applications for unemployment benefit. Our experimental design facilitates testing for the presence of each of two key (but intertwined) drivers of discrimination: ethnic animus and socioeconomic status prejudice. We find substantial evidence for the presence of discrimination based on both of these sources. Since Roma tend to have lower socioeconomic status, the two sources of discrimination compound for them.","PeriodicalId":188529,"journal":{"name":"MUNI ECON Working Papers","volume":"36 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125039187","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1900-01-01DOI: 10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2021-04
Fazio Andrea, Reggiani Tommaso, Sabatini Fabio
We study how the political cost of enforcing a lockdown in response to the COVID- 19 outbreak relates to citizens’ propensity for altruistic punishment in Italy, the early epicenter of the pandemic. Approval for the government’s management of the crisis decreases with the amount of the penalties that individuals would like to see enforced for lockdown violations. People supporting stronger punishment are more likely to consider the government’s reaction to the pandemic as insufficient. However, after the establishment of tougher sanctions for risky behaviors, we observe a sudden flip in support for government. Higher amounts of the desired fines become associated with a higher probability of considering the government’s policy response as too extreme, lower trust in government, and lower confidence in the truthfulness of the officially provided information. Lockdowns entail a political cost that helps explain why democracies may adopt epidemiologically suboptimal policies.
{"title":"The political cost of lockdown´s enforcement","authors":"Fazio Andrea, Reggiani Tommaso, Sabatini Fabio","doi":"10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2021-04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2021-04","url":null,"abstract":"We study how the political cost of enforcing a lockdown in response to the COVID- 19 outbreak relates to citizens’ propensity for altruistic punishment in Italy, the early epicenter of the pandemic. Approval for the government’s management of the crisis decreases with the amount of the penalties that individuals would like to see enforced for lockdown violations. People supporting stronger punishment are more likely to consider the government’s reaction to the pandemic as insufficient. However, after the establishment of tougher sanctions for risky behaviors, we observe a sudden flip in support for government. Higher amounts of the desired fines become associated with a higher probability of considering the government’s policy response as too extreme, lower trust in government, and lower confidence in the truthfulness of the officially provided information. Lockdowns entail a political cost that helps explain why democracies may adopt epidemiologically suboptimal policies.","PeriodicalId":188529,"journal":{"name":"MUNI ECON Working Papers","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123149970","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1900-01-01DOI: 10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2021-03
Peciar Vladimír
In this paper I use the production function approach popularized by De Loecker et al. (2020) to analyze the evolution of market power in Slovakia and some of its micro and macro implications. In contrast to other studies, I calculate markups from both value added and sales and empirically test whether some of the global trends in market power can be seen in Slovak firm level data as well. I find that the markups in Slovakia in fact declined since 2010, both in terms of value added and sales. Although the decrease in sales markups is negligible, the value added aggregate markup declined by 25% from 2.35 in 2012 to 1.78 in 2018. Value added markups tend to be higher for relatively value-added larger firms and they are also higher in larger sectors. Smaller firms (size indicated by number of employees) tend to have higher markups. It seems that a typical high markup firm is relatively small (in terms of number of employees) but produces relatively larger output. Correlations between markups and various measures of profitabality show that there is indeed a relationship between markups and market power. Markups strongly correlate with profits and they do not significantly react to changes in costs. Markups in Slovakia evolve in excess of marginal costs. Slovak firm data shows that markups are also inversely associated to labor shares. Correlation is statistically strong and empirically well established.
{"title":"Empirical investigation into market power, markups and employment","authors":"Peciar Vladimír","doi":"10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2021-03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2021-03","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper I use the production function approach popularized by De Loecker et al. (2020) to analyze the evolution of market power in Slovakia and some of its micro and macro implications. In contrast to other studies, I calculate markups from both value added and sales and empirically test whether some of the global trends in market power can be seen in Slovak firm level data as well. I find that the markups in Slovakia in fact declined since 2010, both in terms of value added and sales. Although the decrease in sales markups is negligible, the value added aggregate markup declined by 25% from 2.35 in 2012 to 1.78 in 2018. Value added markups tend to be higher for relatively value-added larger firms and they are also higher in larger sectors. Smaller firms (size indicated by number of employees) tend to have higher markups. It seems that a typical high markup firm is relatively small (in terms of number of employees) but produces relatively larger output. Correlations between markups and various measures of profitabality show that there is indeed a relationship between markups and market power. Markups strongly correlate with profits and they do not significantly react to changes in costs. Markups in Slovakia evolve in excess of marginal costs. Slovak firm data shows that markups are also inversely associated to labor shares. Correlation is statistically strong and empirically well established.","PeriodicalId":188529,"journal":{"name":"MUNI ECON Working Papers","volume":"224 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115083630","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1900-01-01DOI: 10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2022-04
Coufalová Lucie, Mikula Štěpán, Ševčík Michal
Homophily in Voting Behavior: Evidence from Preferential Voting Abstract: Homophily is a strong determinant of many types of human relationships. It affects, for example, whom we marry and potentially also whom we vote for. We use data on preferential voting from Czech parliamentary elections in 2006, 2010, 2013, and 2017 matched with 2011 Census data to identify the effect of homophily on voting behavior. We find that a one percent increase in the share of the municipality’s population that has the same occupation or education level as the candidate increases the number of preferential votes that candidate receives by 0.7% or 0.5%, respectively. We also find that candidates who live in the voters’ municipality receive a substantially higher number of preferential votes.
{"title":"Homophily in Voting Behavior: Evidence from Preferential Voting","authors":"Coufalová Lucie, Mikula Štěpán, Ševčík Michal","doi":"10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2022-04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2022-04","url":null,"abstract":"Homophily in Voting Behavior: Evidence from Preferential Voting Abstract: Homophily is a strong determinant of many types of human relationships. It affects, for example, whom we marry and potentially also whom we vote for. We use data on preferential voting from Czech parliamentary elections in 2006, 2010, 2013, and 2017 matched with 2011 Census data to identify the effect of homophily on voting behavior. We find that a one percent increase in the share of the municipality’s population that has the same occupation or education level as the candidate increases the number of preferential votes that candidate receives by 0.7% or 0.5%, respectively. We also find that candidates who live in the voters’ municipality receive a substantially higher number of preferential votes.","PeriodicalId":188529,"journal":{"name":"MUNI ECON Working Papers","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125862389","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1900-01-01DOI: 10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2023-04
Tim Friedhoff, C. Au, Philippe Krahnhof
It has already been literarily proven that the past shows a statistical correlation between crude oil prices and certain industries that are influenced by its volatility. In this context, the Russian war in particular leads to reassessable reactions of these industries. In this paper, we investigate this influence during the war period and compare the results with pre-war calculations for 533 companies from 12 industries. Therefore, we use a recursive SVAR model, based on which we illustrate our results graphically with the impulse-response function. We find that the shock responses of industries to Brent volatilities during the war period have a high explanatory power, but we find different results for the individual industries. While oil-producing industries react positively to positive shocks (more so during the war period), the impact on oil-producing industries is rather small, but negative. Oil & Gas Drilling shows an increase of 10 % and Tires & Rubber Products a decrease of 8 %. Also other industries show surprising results.
{"title":"Analysis of the Impact of Orthogonalized Brent Oil Price Shocks on the Returns of Dependent Industries in Times of the Russian War","authors":"Tim Friedhoff, C. Au, Philippe Krahnhof","doi":"10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2023-04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2023-04","url":null,"abstract":"It has already been literarily proven that the past shows a statistical correlation between crude oil prices and certain industries that are influenced by its volatility. In this context, the Russian war in particular leads to reassessable reactions of these industries. In this paper, we investigate this influence during the war period and compare the results with pre-war calculations for 533 companies from 12 industries. Therefore, we use a recursive SVAR model, based on which we illustrate our results graphically with the impulse-response function. We find that the shock responses of industries to Brent volatilities during the war period have a high explanatory power, but we find different results for the individual industries. While oil-producing industries react positively to positive shocks (more so during the war period), the impact on oil-producing industries is rather small, but negative. Oil & Gas Drilling shows an increase of 10 % and Tires & Rubber Products a decrease of 8 %. Also other industries show surprising results.","PeriodicalId":188529,"journal":{"name":"MUNI ECON Working Papers","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127364793","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1900-01-01DOI: 10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2022-08
Coufalová Lucie, Mikula Štěpán
The effect of ranking and the effect of attention both increase the chances that candidates running in the top positions of electoral lists will win voters’ support. We exploit a variation in ballot layout (the location of the break between the first and second sides of the ballot) in the 2006–2017 Czech parliamentary elections to disentangle these effects and identify the effect of attention. We show that being listed on the reverse side of the ballot paper decreases electoral support by at least 50%.
{"title":"The Grass Is Not Greener on the Other Side: The Role of Attention in Voting Behaviour","authors":"Coufalová Lucie, Mikula Štěpán","doi":"10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2022-08","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5817/wp_muni_econ_2022-08","url":null,"abstract":"The effect of ranking and the effect of attention both increase the chances that candidates running in the top positions of electoral lists will win voters’ support. We exploit a variation in ballot layout (the location of the break between the first and second sides of the ballot) in the 2006–2017 Czech parliamentary elections to disentangle these effects and identify the effect of attention. We show that being listed on the reverse side of the ballot paper decreases electoral support by at least 50%.","PeriodicalId":188529,"journal":{"name":"MUNI ECON Working Papers","volume":"178 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122087149","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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