Social Capital and Social Quilts: Network Patterns of Favor Exchange

We examine the informal exchange of favors in societies such that any two individuals interact too infrequently to sustain exchange, but such that the social pressure of the possible loss of multiple relationships can sustain exchange. Patterns of exchange that are locally enforceable and renegotiat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe American economic review Vol. 102; no. 5; pp. 1857 - 1897
Main Authors Jackson, Matthew O., Rodriguez-Barraquer, Tomas, Tan, Xu
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Nashville American Economic Association 01.08.2012
Subjects
Clustering
Cooperation
Correlation
Culture
Economic theory
Economics
Enforcement
Equilibrium
Friendship
Game theory
Hyperlinks
Individuals
Neighborhoods
Ostracism
Quilts
Social capital
Social interaction
Social networking
Social structures
Society
Studies
Sustainable economies
Villages
India
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Summary:We examine the informal exchange of favors in societies such that any two individuals interact too infrequently to sustain exchange, but such that the social pressure of the possible loss of multiple relationships can sustain exchange. Patterns of exchange that are locally enforceable and renegotiation-proof necessitate that all links are "supported": any two individuals exchanging favors have a common friend. In symmetric settings, such robust networks are "social quilts": tree-like unions of completely connected subnetworks. Examining favor exchange networks in 75 villages in rural India, we find high levels of support and identify characteristics that correlate with support.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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ISSN:0002-8282
1944-7981
DOI:10.1257/aer.102.5.1857