Abdul Munasib

The Effect of Social Capital on the Choice to Use Sustainable Agricultural Practices

We investigate whether social capital in the form of community involvement affects farmers’ choice to use sustainable agricultural practices. Using associational memberships as a measure of community involvement we study its effects on agricultural practices among Georgia farmers. Our findings show that, first, community involvement had a positive effect on the decision to adopt sustainable agricultural practices, and, secondly, it also had a positive effect on the extent to which farmers adopt these practices. These findings establish an additional dimension to the benefits that would accrue to policies that promote social interaction and civic engagement in rural areas.

Community Development and Local Social Capital

While a substantial amount of research has been devoted to showing what social capital does, research explaining social capital itself lags behind. The literature has a long tradition of examining the effect of social capital on local economic growth and development. In this paper we examine whether local economic development can explain the variation in social capital across various geographical clusters in the state of Georgia. We begin by devising a measurement tool, a Human Development Index (HDI), to measure community development. Our social capital measure includes associational memberships, voluntary activities, and philanthropy obtained from the Georgia Social Capital Survey. The findings show that even after accounting for various demographic and economic characteristics, the HDI explains the variation in a number of social capital levels (especially those measured by associational involvement) across various geographical clusters in the state of Georgia.

Financial Reforms and International Trade

Abstract We provide evidence that financial reforms (over 1976–2005) significantly affected exports, in particular, of industries with higher external capital dependence and low asset tangibility. The coverage of reforms is comprehensive, encompassing the banking sector, interest rates, equity and international capital markets. Our methodology improves upon existing studies by controlling for time-varying unobserved exporter characteristics and unobserved country-specific industry characteristics. We find significant effects of various reforms with diverse impacts by intensity. Further, event studies that incorporate possible anticipated and lagged effects of commencement of reform policies confirm the findings.

Are Friendly Farmers Environmentally Friendly? Environmental Awareness as a Social Capital Outcome

This paper examines the hypothesis that social capital at the individual level affects environmentally friendly practices. Social capital represents the social connectedness of the individual. An individual with higher social capital is more likely to have better exposure and access to information about the importance of environmentally friendly practices. We study sustainable agricultural practices among Georgia farmers and examine whether their social capital levels have any effect on, (1) their adoption of sustainable agricultural practices, and (2) the extent to which they engage in these practices. Using the Georgia Social Capital Survey our measure of social capital is associational activities. We address a number of econometric issues: potential endogeneity of the social capital variable, peer-group effect in the form of social pressure, and a sorting issue.

The Impact of Obesity on Consumer Bankruptcy

Over the last two decades, both bankruptcy and obesity rates in the U.S. have seen a steady rise. As obesity is one of the leading causes of medical and morbidity related economic costs, its influence on personal bankruptcy is analyzed in this study. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, we employ a duration model to investigate the relative importance of obesity on the timing of bankruptcy. Even after accounting for possible endogeneity of BMI and controlling for a wide variety of individual and aggregate-level confounding factors, being obese puts one at a greater risk of filing for bankruptcy.

Stand Your Ground laws, homicides and gun deaths

ABSTRACT An increased recognition of the possibility of treatment heterogeneities of policy changes has resulted in the rise of comparative case studies. Our analysis uses the synthetic control method (SCM) to examine if the passage of the Stand Your Ground (SYG) laws had dissimilar effects on homicides and firearms deaths in the US states that passed these laws during the first wave (between 2005 and 2007). Using 22 years of data (1991–2012) to study each state separately, we find that these laws did not have uniform effects across states: in three out of 14 states – Florida, Alabama and Michigan – they led to increased (non-suicide) firearms deaths (and by different magnitudes). These three states imposed a duty to retreat prior to their SYG laws and saw a marked departure in self-defence treatment as their SYG laws passed. As for murder and non-negligent manslaughter, only for Florida was an effect found.

Networks and low adoption of modern technology: the case of pearl millet in Rajasthan, India

Purpose - – This paper aims to study low adoption of modern technology for pearl millet in Rajasthan, India, from the perspective of social networks. The state has the lowest adoption of modern pearl millet seeds among Indian states. . In particular, this paper tries to identify the limitations of channels with endogenous effects, thereby limiting large-scale adoption of modern varieties that would require social multipliers. Design/methodology/approach - – Defining the network/reference groups in terms of social identity and geographical proximity, this paper utilizes the intensity of interaction with different network nodes to identify the presence of endogenous effects. In particular, this paper uses the interaction of intensity of social exchange with the group level adoptions to establish the presence of endogenous effects. With adequate controls, greater intensity of interaction having a bearing on technology choice can only happen when there exists social learning (endogenous effect) and cannot be associated with other forms of social effects (namely, exogenous and correlated effects). Findings - – This paper finds evidence for the existence of endogenous social effects in adoption but largely from exclusionary channels. A comprehensively mapped network is used with its intensity to explain the extremely low rate of adoption. Only close-knit networks that, with social fragmentation, limit benefits to few, affect adoption significantly. The non-functionality of less exclusionary information sources and services can be a factor underlying low adoption. Research limitations/implications - – The main limitation of the study is inability to control for unobserved individual heterogeneity because of the cross-sectional nature of data. Further, although an extensive mapping of individual networks has been done, it still cannot be guaranteed to be exhaustive. Practical implications - – With fragmentation, large-scale adoption programs would require networks, sources of information and services that are less exclusionary. Based on the survey data, media and non-religious organizations play a focal role here in the adoption of modern technology. This finding is extremely crucial for policy, as these channels comprise direct policy levers in a fragmented society like India. Indeed, several government programs in India have relied on these channels to run large-scale adoption programs. Their ineffectiveness could be a prime factor for such limited dissemination of technology in Rajasthan. Social implications - – In different settings, social fragmentation could be an important factor determining technology adoption outcomes. The evolving consensus in the literature based on several studies is that ethnic fragmentation has potentially negative consequences on macro-economic performance (Alesina and Tabellini, 1989 and Collier, 2000). In the literature on technology adoption, the role of fractionalization is somewhat under-studied. With fragmentation, there can be significant micro-level impacts (for instance, low technology adoption of a crop) if channels that are inclusive are not well developed. The finding that channels like extension services, media or organizations are not effective in determining choice of technology does not mean that they should not be tapped. The empirical findings suggest that, in their current form in the state of Rajasthan, the roles played by these are limited. The policy implications would be to develop these systems in a way that there is a greater uptake. Recall that less than 4 per cent of the respondents got information on seeds from media sources, an extremely low number. There is certainly scope for increasing the outreach of these channels that are much more important for spread of agricultural technology in a fragmented society. Originality/value - – This paper is an attempt to come up with an empirical strategy to mitigate the issues related to reflection problem. In the cross-sectional data itself, we use the interaction of group choices with intensity of interaction within the group to introduce a non-linearity that tries to bypass the identification issues as in reflection problem. This method of introducing non-linearity in cross-sectional data is a novel attempt to achieve identification of endogenous effects.

Impact of institutions on social network formation: communist party membership and social network investment in China

Using the 2003 wave of China General Social Survey (2003CGSS), we study the influence of the communist party on individuals social networks in urban China and, thereby, present a case of socio-political institutions being an important ingredient in social network formation. We adopt a counterfactual framework and estimate the effect of communist party membership on social network investment as an average treatment effect. We find the treatment to be significant.

Can Too Much TV Ground You for Life? Television and Child Outcomes

The number of hours a typical child watches the television is almost double the suggested guideline by American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). A very large number of studies have claimed an adverse effect of television on children and teenagers. In this paper, we use The National Longitudinal Survey (NLS), a rich, nationally representative data set that allows us to observe the inter-temporal variations in television viewing behavior and the child outcome measures. Unlike the previous studies, we account for unobservables at the family and the child level, and find that hours of television viewing does not have any effect on Body Mass Index, or reading and mathematics test scores. Only in case of behavioral problems television does have an adverse effect, but the magnitude is small. Despite the conventional wisdom and the ongoing populist movement towards proactive policies, these findings suggest that an emphasis on policies based on existing studies may be premature.

Do Right to Work Laws Worsen Income Inequality? Evidence from the Last Five Decades

There is an ongoing debate about whether changes in labor regulations such as Right to Work (RTW) laws are contributing to the rising trend of income inequality in the U.S. We adopt Synthetic Control Method (SCM) for comparative case study to examine the impact of a state’s adoption of RTW law on its income inequality. We use a wide range of inequality measures for Idaho, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas, states that enacted RTW between the 1960s and the 2000s. We find that RTW did not impact income inequality in these states. This result is underpinned by additional finding of a lack of impact of RTW on unionization and investment.