Bay Area Tech Economics Seminar with Mike Bailey, Meta

Presentation Title: Social Capital Around the World

Speaker: Mike Bailey, Senior Social Scientist at Meta & Founder of the Social Capital Lab

Abstract: Social capital—the strength of an individual’s social network and community—has been identified as a potential determinant of outcomes ranging from education to health, but there is very limited measurement of social capital worldwide. We construct and analyze several global measures of social capital, including economic connectedness—the extent to which individuals form friendships across socioeconomic lines—using data on 550 billion social connections between 1.7 billion Facebook users across nearly 200 countries and territories. We find that economic connectedness varies substantially both across and within countries. Economic connectedness is associated with higher intergenerational economic mobility, greater trust in others and in democratic institutions, and more pro-social norms. We also identify several factors—population density, language homophily, and inequality that together predict two-thirds of the cross-region variation in homophily by socioeconomic status.

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This talk is co-sponsored by USF's Master's in Applied Economics and the Stanford Causal Science Center. For additional information and abstracts from past talks, please click here. 

Agenda

• 6–7 PM: Networking Reception
• 7–8:30 PM: Speaker Presentation followed by Q&A

About the Bay Area Tech Economics Seminar

This event brings together graduate-trained economists and other quantitative social scientists from academia, policy, or the private sector who are interested in the tech economy and methods for analyzing it. Each seminar will feature a guest speaker who will present on their work and research, with discussion and questions encouraged throughout. This broadly defined space also offers an opportunity to make connections with others in the field.