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Regular version of the site

Social capital, trust, and cultural norms

      
Participants from ICSID:Timothy Frye, Ekaterina Borisova, Irina Levina, Denis Ivanov, Anna Kulkova
 
Further information on the project:Ekaterina Borisova (eborisova at hse.ru)
 
A significant body of empirical and theoretical research has demonstrated the importance of social capital and cultural norms for economic and institutional development. Much less attention has been devoted to identifying the precise mechanisms that generate and change social norms and foster social capital. Russia offers a fertile ground for this research as it has a vibrant history with economic and political shocks, diverse institutions and populations affected by different types of norms – from Soviet and traditional ones to quite modern.
 
Our work is based on unique datasets that allow us to study modern social capital and cultural norms and link them with data from archives. Among them are surveys of 34,000 individuals in almost all Russian regions conducted in 2000-2011 and designed to be regionally representative. We also use other valuable sources of information such as Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS), World Values Survey, and Life in Transition Survey. Precise projects concentrate on trust influence on preferences over redistribution to target groups, naming patterns and their consequences in Russia, effect of elections on institutional trust, role of Old Believers and Russian Germans for the long-term economic development.
 
We have also designed a field experiment in homeowners associations (HOAs) in Russia to investigate the role of encouragement to participate in local public goods provision and to study spillover effects of one types of collective action on another. In November 2014 we gathered pre-treatment information of 80 HOAs in Novosibirsk and provided the first treatment using the standard encouragement design. We distributed flyers with the information about HOAs and expect to find their effect on information about HOAs, participation in decision-making and social life and satisfaction with HOAs. In 2015 we will repeat the abovementioned treatment and provide an additional one – with the encouragement to participate in elections. Overall we expect to have pre- and post-treatment information for about 1600 homeowners in 80 HOAs that will allow us to study evolution of norms and the role of different stimulus in this process.
 
Ongoing projects:
·  Trust and Preferences over Redistribution in Russia (E. Borisova, A. Govorun, D. Ivanov, I. Levina)
·  Encouragement and Collective Action. An Experiment in Homeowners Associations in Russia (T. Frye, E. Borisova, G. Syunyaev)
·  The Name as a Fate: Naming Patterns and their Consequences in Russia (E. Borisova, I. Levina, A. Kulkova)
·  Causal Link between Trust and Institutions: Evidence From Georgian Reforms (D. Ivanov)
·  Resettlement, Human Capital and Culture: How Did It Matter for Development? (E. Borisova, A. Govorun, D. Ivanov)
·  Elections and Trust in Government (T. Frye, E. Borisova)
·  Do Secrets Come out? An Empirical Investigation of Cheating in Russia (E. Borisova, A. Peresetsky)
 
Publications:
Buckley N., Frye T., Gehlbach S., McCarthy L.A. Who Reports? Using Survey Experiments to Explore Cooperation with the State in Russia and Georgia (under review)
Buckley N., Frye T., McCarthy L.A. Cooperating With the State: Evidence from a Survey Experiment on Policing in Moscow (under review)
Borisova E., Polishchuk L., Peresetsky A. (2014) Collective Management of Residential Housing in Russia: The Importance of Being Social. Journal of Comparative Economics, 42(3), 609-629.
Borisova E., Polishchuk L., Suvorov A. (2014) Observe or Violate: Intrinsic Motivation of Academic Ethics. Journal of the New Economic Association, 2(22), 41-72. (in Russian)
Borisova E., Govorun A., Ivanov D., Levina I. (2014) Who to Help? Trust and Preferences over Redistribution in Russia // Series: Economics, WP BRP 67
Borisova E., Peresetsky A. (2013) Do Secrets Come out? Working paper WP10/2013/04. Moscow: Publishing House of the Higher School of Economics, Series WP10 “LIA Working Paper Series” (in Russian). 29 p.
 
Conference and Workshop Presentations:
Workshop on Institutional Analysis - The Ronald Coase Institute. Philippines, Manila, December 7-13, 2014: “Resettlement, Human Capital and Culture: How Did It Matter for Development?”
Public Goods through Private Eyes. Project concluding conference. Poland, Warsaw, October 9-10, 2014: “What Is the Relationship between Trust and Preferences for Redistribution in Russia?”
A Workshop on the Political Economy of Russia, Columbia University, New York (USA), September 18-19, 2014: “Encouragement and Collective Action. An Experiment in Homeowners Associations in Russia”; “Who to Help? Trust and Preferences over Redistribution in Russia”
European School for New Institutional Economics (ESNIE), Cargese, France, May 19-23, 2014: “Who to Help? Trust and Preferences over Redistribution in Russia”

 


 

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