American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Social Capital and Social Quilts: Network Patterns of Favor Exchange
American Economic Review
vol. 102,
no. 5, August 2012
(pp. 1857–97)
Abstract
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. (JEL D85, O12, O18, Z13)Citation
Jackson, Matthew O., Tomas Rodriguez-Barraquer, and Xu Tan. 2012. "Social Capital and Social Quilts: Network Patterns of Favor Exchange." American Economic Review, 102 (5): 1857–97. DOI: 10.1257/aer.102.5.1857Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D85 Network Formation and Analysis: Theory
- O12 Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
- O18 Economic Development: Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
- Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Social and Economic Stratification