Does Rational Choice Have Utility on the Margins?

Also CSST Working Paper #25.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/51156/1/388.pd

The Off-Label Use of Consumer Credit Ratings

Sovereign, corporate and consumer credit ratings are used to assess the creditworthiness of borrowers. Yet these ratings often fulfill other functions as well, serving as measures of more general qualities of countries, businesses and individuals. When ratings are used outside the context of lending, we call it ‘off-label use.’ This paper develops the argument in the context of consumer lending and discusses the use of credits scores in the U.S. by car insurance companies in calculating premiums, landlords in selecting tenants, and employers in hiring workers. We argue that off-label use can have harmful effects through two mechanisms: error propagation and enhanced performativity. Both amplify small initial differences, exacerbate inequalities, lock borrowers in upward or downward spirals and increase economic inequalities. Turbo performativity results when measures influenced by earlier credit scores become direct inputs for calculating new credit scores. Off-label use of consumer ratings, therefore, should be treated not just as a privacy issue but also as a factor in economic polarization

Consumer credit surveillance

This chapter reviews the development of consumer credit surveillance in the United States from the nineteenth century, as the original problem of information asymmetry in consumer lending gave rise to consumer data registries, a process led by merchants, not by financial institutions. Regulations in the 1970s addressing discrimination and data privacy limited consumer credit surveillance, but lately two developments reversed this trend. Aided by banking deregulation and advances in information technology, the use of credit scores expanded beyond lending, while the kind of data used to calculate scores has also widened, turning the credit score into a general measure of character. This results in a pervasive new system of consumer surveillance and control that turns the original information asymmetry upside down, favoring lenders and other corporate actors, including the state, at the expense of consumers. The European Union is trying to limit this system while a full version is currently piloted in China.Accepted manuscrip

Dissemination of Health Information within Social Networks

In this paper, we investigate, how information about a common food born health hazard, known as Campylobacter, spreads once it was delivered to a random sample of individuals in France. The central question addressed here is how individual characteristics and the various aspects of social network influence the spread of information. A key claim of our paper is that information diffusion processes occur in a patterned network of social ties of heterogeneous actors. Our percolation models show that the characteristics of the recipients of the information matter as much if not more than the characteristics of the sender of the information in deciding whether the information will be transmitted through a particular tie. We also found that at least for this particular advisory, it is not the perceived need of the recipients for the information that matters but their general interest in the topic

Research Fellows Conference Panel on Subordinate Actors and Their Marginalization in Social Theory

Also CSST Working Paper #28.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/51159/1/391.pd

Consumer credit in comparative perspective

We review the literature in sociology and related fields on the fast global growth of consumer credit and debt and the possible explanations for this expansion. We describe the ways people interact with the strongly segmented consumer credit system around the world—more specifically, the way they access credit and the way they are held accountable for their debt. We then report on research on two areas in which consumer credit is consequential: its effects on social relations and on physical and mental health. Throughout the article, we point out national variations and discuss explanations for these differences. We conclude with a brief discussion of the future tasks and challenges of comparative research on consumer credit.Accepted manuscrip

Workers no longer welcome? Europeanization of solidarity in the wake of Brexit (Discussion Forum. Brexit: understanding the socio-economic origins and consequences)

Peer reviewe

Embracing the Market: Entry into Self-Employment in Transitional China, 1978-1996

This paper introduces labor market transition as an intervening process by which the macro institutional transition to a market economy alters social stratification outcome. Rather than directly addressing income distribution, it examines the pattern of workers’ entry into self-employment in reform-era China (1978-1996), focusing on rural-urban differences and the temporal trend. Analyses of data from a national representative survey in China show that education, party membership and cadre status all deter urban workers’ entry into self-employment, while education promotes rural workers’ entry into self-employment. As marketization proceeds, the rate of entry into self-employment increases in both rural and urban China, but urban workers are increasingly more likely to take advantages of the new market opportunities. In urban China, college graduates and cadres are still less likely to be involved in self-employment, but they are becoming more likely to do so in the later phase of reform. The diversity of transition scenarios is attributed to rural-urban differences in labor market structures.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39897/3/wp512.pd