Able but Unwilling to Enforce
Cooperative Dilemmas in Group Lending
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2227600 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nicholas Sabin (0000-0002-6702-976X, Universidad de Santiago de Chile), Felix Reed-Tsochas (0000-0001-7923-750X, University of Oxford) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 125 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 1602-1667 |
| Publication date | 2020-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-9602 • E-ISSN: 1537-5390 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/709105 |
| OpenAlex | W2903134794 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 135 |
It is known that greater social cohesion increases a group’s ability to enforce cooperation. Despite this, defectors often go unpunished, and groups with social structures that are a priori favorable often fail. A critical distinction is required between the structural effect on ability versus willingness to punish. The authors develop a theoretical framework in which variation in a group’s social structure generates a tension between ability and willingness to enforce cooperation. Structures that promote ability to punish also often reduce interest in carrying out sanctions, thus changing collective outcomes. The authors’ empirical analysis involves a well-defined cooperative dilemma: group lending in Sierra Leone. They complement statistical modeling, based on a data set containing 5,487 group repayments, with ethnographic analysis. They find that (1) structural cohesion only increases economic cooperation between borrowers to a point, beyond which unwillingness outweighs increased ability to punish, reducing group repayments, and that (2) groups with disconnected subgroups perform worse on average. Although borrowers are more willing to punish defectors in the out-subgroup, they are unable to do so effectively
Cohesion (chemistry) · Complement (music) · Dilemma · Economics · Group (periodic table) · Group cohesiveness · Microeconomics · Political science · Sanctions · Set (abstract data type) · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies · Islamic Finance and Banking Studies · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology
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Cooperation and Punishment in Public Goods Experiments
Five Rules for the Evolution of Cooperation
Peer Monitoring and Credit Markets
Group Identity and Social Preferences
Notes on Continuous Stochastic Phenomena
Social Dilemmas
Structural balance
Group Affiliation and Altruistic Norm Enforcement
Attitudes and Cognitive Organization
Community structure in social and biological networks
The Interpretation of Cultures
Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education
Human groups and social categories
Social behavior
The Qualitative Researcher's Companion
From the Division of Labor in Society
The Structure and Dynamics of Movement Participation
Group credit
Exchange and Power in Social Life
Social Capital
The Logic of Collective Action
Working Together
The Oxford Handbook of Analytical Sociology
Collective Action and the Civil Rights Movement
Brokerage and Closure
Trust and Reciprocity
Economic Action and Social Structure
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Social Capital, Microfinance, and the Politics of Development
Peer Monitoring, Social Ties and Moral Hazard in Group Lending Programs
Microenterprise Lending to Female Entrepreneurs
Group lending, local information and peer selection
Group lending, repayment incentives and social collateral
Group insurance and lending with endogenous social collateral
Repayment performance in group lending
Gender and Cooperation
Seating Position and Small Group Interaction
The rational weakness of strong ties
The Empirics of Microfinance
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Networks and Contexts
Distance Matters
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The provision of a sanctioning system as a public good
Explaining Norm Enforcement
Collective Sanctions and Compliance Norms
Neighborhood Interaction in a Homogeneous Community
Collective Action and Network Structure
Local Friendship Ties and Community Attachment in Mass Society
Social Pressures in Informal Groups
Cooperation in Microcredit Borrowing Groups
Collective Action and Group Heterogeneity
Normative foundations of human cooperation
Collective Action, Rival Incentives, and the Emergence of Antisocial Norms
Embeddedness in the Making of Financial Capital
Structural Cohesion and Embeddedness
In-group bias in the minimal intergroup situation
Modeling Group Loan Repayment Behavior
The Rotating Credit Association
Determinants of Repayment Performance in Credit Groups
Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms
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Long Distance Community in the Network Society
Social identity and intergroup behaviour
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Inequality and Heterogeneity
Foundations of Social Theory
Collective Benefits, Exchange Interests, and Norm Enforcement
Cohesion Versus Structural Equivalence as a Basis for Network Subgroups
Dynamics of Dyads in Social Networks
Human Motivation and Social Cooperation
Social Cohesion
Social Dilemmas
Social Capital
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| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2026 (4) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |