Workshop: Networks, Behaviour and Poverty
Oxford, December 2004
Workshop summary
In its second full year of operation, the GPRG series of workshops has continued and been extended to include invitees from outside the group. As a partner in the GPRG, the CSAE is committed to conducting research that assists policy makers in their endeavour to reduce poverty and it was with this focus in mind that the Networks and Behaviour workshop was held at CSAE in December 2004. Recent empirical findings suggest that in developing countries formal market-supporting institutions are often absent or lacking. As a result, agents rely on social networks and behavioural norms to facilitate exchange, coordination and cooperation, and thereby to enhance their wellbeing. The purpose of the workshop was to identify promising avenues for research into the complex interaction between networks, behaviour, and poverty. The workshop explored new advances in the understanding of human behaviour in social contexts by bringing together prominent researchers from several disciplines including economics, sociology, anthropology, psychology, philosophy and geography, each of whom have made significant contributions in this field.
Presentations
- Jean-Louis Arcand (CERDI), ‘Peasant associations as networks’ (with Marcel Fafchamps)
- Abigail Barr ( Oxford), ‘Risk pooling, commitment, and information’
- Steve Durlauf (University of Wisconsin-Madison), ‘Identification of social network effects’
- Jean Ensminger (CalTech), ‘How the poorest of the poor help themselves: A case study of corruption in African villages with implications for community driven development’
- Marcel Fafchamps ( Oxford), ‘Coauthorship and networks in economics’, (with Sanjeev Goyal and Marco van der Leij)
- Diego Gambetta ( Oxford), ‘The exchange of compromising information and its effects on networks of law-breakers’
- Garance Genicot ( Georgetown University), ‘Informal insurance in social networks’, (with Francis Bloch and Debraj Ray)
- Sanjeev Goyal ( University of Essex), ‘Structural holes in social networks’
- Flore Gubert (DIAL), ‘Endogenous risk sharing networks’, (with Marcel Fafchamps)
- Jeffrey Johnson ( East Carolina University), ‘Political capital as social capital: The evolution of influence in a political network’
- Dean Karlan ( Princeton University), ‘Field experiments on social networks’
- Arno Riedl ( University of Amsterdam), ‘Voluntary mechanisms for sustaining cooperation: Some recent experimental results on networks and institutions’