The Impact of Social Structure on Economic Outcomes
@article{Granovetter2005TheIO, title={The Impact of Social Structure on Economic Outcomes}, author={Mark S. Granovetter}, journal={Journal of Economic Perspectives}, year={2005}, volume={19}, pages={33-50} }
S ocial structure, especially in the form of social networks, affects economic outcomes for three main reasons. First, social networks affect the flow and the quality of information. Much information is subtle, nuanced and difficult to verify, so actors do not believe impersonal sources and instead rely on people they know. Second, social networks are an important source of reward and punishment, since these are often magnified in their impact when coming from others personally known. Third…
2,542 Citations
Social network structure and the trade-off between social utility and economic performance
- EconomicsSoc. Networks
- 2018
The opportunity cost of social relations: On the effectiveness of small worlds
- Economics
- 2008
The aim of this paper is to extend the theoretical literature on knowledge and network structure by studying the use of social networks as a learning mechanism. The novelty of this approach is…
Inferring personal economic status from social network location
- EconomicsNature communications
- 2017
The results show that an individual's location, measured as the optimal collective influence to the structural integrity of the social network, is highly correlated with personal economic status.
The Dark Side of Social Capital Re-examined from a Policy Analysis Perspective: Networks of Trust and Corruption
- Economics
- 2014
Abstract This work deepens the analysis of the “dark side” of social capital proposed by Alejandro Portes and Patricia Landlot and revisited by Peter Graeff. For this purpose, it combines the…
The social order of markets
- Economics, Sociology
- 2009
In this article I develop a proposal for the theoretical vantage point of the sociology of markets, focusing on the problem of the social order of markets. The initial premise is that markets are…
Social Cohesion, Structural Holes, and a Tale of Two Measures
- BusinessArXiv
- 2012
This paper proposes a new measure, Simmelian brokerage, that captures opportunities of brokerage between otherwise disconnected cohesive groups of contacts and shows that clustering and effective size are simply two sides of the same coin.
The Firm as a Socialization Device
- EconomicsManag. Sci.
- 2010
It is shown that although the market is a superior incentive mechanism, the firm has a comparative advantage with respect to social motivation and is efficient in environments that favor the provision of incentives, such as when subjective risk is low and performance is easy to measure.
Germs, Social Networks and Growth
- EconomicsThe Review of Economic Studies
- 2010
Does the pattern of social connections between individuals matter for macroeconomic outcomes? If so, where do differences in these patterns come from and how large are their effects? Using network…
The dark side of social capital: Lessons from the Madoff case
- Economics
- 2010
The contemporary social capital discourse is ‘probably less than twenty or so years old’ (Castiglione, 2008, p. 1), and its meaning remains elusive and contested (Castiglione, Van Deth, & Wolleb,…
The Currency of Connections
- Economics
- 2017
Proponents of social capital theory have long argued that it is not only in the best interest of civic life to build social capital but that social capital is vital for the economic health of…
References
SHOWING 1-10 OF 74 REFERENCES
Weighing the Worth of Social Ties: Embeddedness and the Price of Legal Services in the Large Law Firm Market
- Economics
- 2006
The determination of prices is a key function of markets yet it is just beginning to be studied by sociologists. Most theories view prices as a consequence of economic processes. By contrast, we…
Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness
- Economics, SociologyAmerican Journal of Sociology
- 1985
How behavior and institutions are affected by social relations is one of the classic questions of social theory. This paper concerns the extent to which economic action is embedded in structures of…
Embeddedness in the making of financial capital : How social relations and networks benefit firms seeking financing
- Economics, Business
- 1999
I investigate how social embeddedness affects an organization’s acquisition and cost of financial capital in middle-market banking—a lucrative but understudied financial sector. Using existing theory…
The Social Structure of a National Securities Market
- EconomicsAmerican Journal of Sociology
- 1984
In this article, a national securities market-the stock options market-is characterized as a social structure represented by the networks of actors who traded options on the floor of a major…
Socially Embedded Consumer Transactions: For What Kinds of Purchases Do People Most Often Use Networks?
- Economics
- 1998
Why and to what extent do people make significant purchases from people with whom they have prior noncommercial relationships ? Using data from the economic sociology module of the 1996 General…
The Strength of Weak Ties
- SociologyAmerican Journal of Sociology
- 1973
Analysis of social networks is suggested as a tool for linking micro and macro levels of sociological theory. The procedure is illustrated by elaboration of the macro implications of one aspect of…
The Sociology of Markets
- Sociology
- 2007
The sociology of markets has been one of the most vibrant fields in sociology in the past 25 years. There is a great deal of agreement that markets are social structures characterized by extensive…
Getting deals done: The use of social networks in bank decision-making
- Business
- 2001
Economic actors confront various forms of uncertainty making decisions, and how they deal with these obstacles may affect their success in accomplishing their goals. This study examines the means by…
The Sociological and Economic Approaches to Labor Market Analysis
- Economics, Sociology
- 1988
This chapter reviews recent economic and sociological work on labor markets, concentrating on studies whose comparison is particularly revealing of differences in strategies and underlying…