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Shun WangPh.D. (2011) Department of Economics, University of British ColumbiaM.A. (2004) Guanghua School of Management, Peking University B.A. (2002) Guanghua School of Management, Peking University Contact Information UBC Department of Economics 997 - 1873 East Mall Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z1 Canada Tel: 1 (778) 836-0677 Email: shunwang@interchange.ubc.ca Thesis Title Essays on Social Capital, Institutions, and Economic Development in China Publication “Trust and Well-Being” (with John F. Helliwell), International Journal of WellBeing 1(1), 2011, 42-78. (pdf) Working Papers Bridging versus Bonding Social Capital and Managing the Firewood
Commons (joint with Kathy Baylis & Yazhen Gong) (pdf)
Abstract:
We compare the effect of bridging versus bonding social capital on the
management of a common pool resource in this paper. We first develop a
theoretical model and show that bonding social capital increases
vulnerability to social sanction, while by giving communities an
outside option, bridging social capital can reduce people’s
vulnerability, making them less susceptible to social sanction, and
reducing the enforcement capability of the community. We then test this
finding using household level data on firewood collection and social
capital from the Yunnan province in China. We find that bonding social
capital improves management of the common pool resource, but that the
effect of bridging social capital is mixed. When bonding social capital
is low, bridging social capital decreases the amount of resource
consumption, however when bonding is high, bridging erode the effect of
bonding. We also find that individuals with higher bridging social
capital are less sensitive to the resource capacity, and those with few
assets therefore few options to self-insure against risk, decrease
their consumption with higher bridging social capital.
Weekends and Subjective Well-Being (joint with John F. Helliwell) (pdf) Abstract: This paper exploits the richness and large sample size of the Gallup/Healthways US daily poll to illustrate significant differences in the dynamics of two key measures of subjective well-being: emotions and life evaluations. For life evaluations, represented here by the Cantril Ladder, day-of-week effects are generally non-existent. We find significantly more happiness, enjoyment, and laughter, and significantly less worry, sadness and anger on Saturday and Sunday than on weekdays, while there are no such effects for the Cantril Ladder. Thus emotions are more responsive to current conditions while life evaluations are linked more closely to enduring circumstances. When we turn to explain the size and likely determinants of the weekend effects, we find strong evidence of the importance of the social context, both at work and at home. Weekend effects are twice as large for full-time paid workers as for the rest of the population, and are much smaller for those whose work supervisor is considered a partner rather than a boss and who report trustable and open work environment. A large portion of the weekend effect is explained by differences in the amount of time spent with friends or family. Respondents report an extra daily social time of two hours on weekends (7.4 vs 5.4 hours) and this extra social time raises average happiness by about 2%. The
Long-Term Consequence of Family Class Origins in Urban China (pdf)
Abstract:
In this paper I study the long-term impact of class identity (chengfen)
on individuals’ income and households’ wealth in urban China. The
Chinese government launched movements to make income and consumption in
cities substantially homogeneous and assigned an inheritable class
identity to each family in the 1950s. The government then implemented
class-based discriminatory policies against the rich and middle class
until 1978. This paper shows that individuals with poor class origins
have significantly lower income and family assets per capita than those
from the rich class in 2002, however individuals with revolutionary
background and Chinese Community Party (CCP) members from the poor
class do not have lower income than those from the rich.
Social Capital and Rotating Labor Associations: An Instrumental Variables Approach (pdf)
Abstract: This paper finds that households in communities with higher levels of social capital are more likely to voluntarily participate in rotating labor associations (ROLAs) using household data which I collected from rural China. ROLAs enable households to help each other with sowing and harvesting in peak farming seasons. The frequency of weather disasters is employed as an instrument for social capital. It is hypothesized that social capital is likely to build in the process of maintaining village temples and rain-praying in the areas with frequent disasters. Numerous falsification exercises are performed to evaluate the efficacy of the instrumental variables approach. Social Capital, Local Government and Water User Associations (pdf) Abstract: This paper conducts an analysis of the underlying factors affecting the performance of water user associations (WUAs) in rural China. This paper first shows that there is a poor implementation of the standard structure of WUAs, using users’ awareness of the existence of WUAs as an indicator. This paper then shows that a more responsible local government not only has direct positive contribution to the performance of WUAs but also affects performance through increasing the users’ awareness about WUAs. Moreover, social capital has impact on some indicators of the performance of WUAs. Fields of Interest Applied Microeconomics, Development Economics, Health and Well-Being, Agriculture and Environment |
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© Shun Wang Nov 2011 |
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