DEMS Economics Seminar: Maria Bigoni (Università di Bologna)

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Wednesday, January 14 at 12:00pm, Room 4096 - Building U7

Money and social exclusion in networks

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Maria Bigoni

The DEMS Economics Seminar series is proud to host

Maria Bigoni

(Università di Bologna)

joint work with Gabriele Camera and Edoardo Gallo

ABSTRACT:
Globalization offers unparalleled opportunities to expand welfare through cooperation across large networks of unrelated individuals. Social exclusion – permanent or temporary – and monetary exchange are institutions that in theory can incentivize cooperation. In an experiment, we evaluate their relative performance and interaction in anonymous networks of different sizes. Permanent social exclusion (ostracism) reduces long-run economic potential by leading to sparse networks. Monetary exchange and temporary social exclusion perform similarly well in small networks. In large networks, however, monetary exchange is the only institution that promotes full cooperation by crowding out ostracism and keeping the network complete. An insight is that monetary systems outperform social exclusion mechanisms in promoting cooperation in globalized social and economic networks.

The seminar will be in presence, Room: 4096 - Building U7