Narrow search
Showing 1 - 10 of 317
Cover Image
Laws and Norms
Bénabou, Roland; Tirole, Jean - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2011
This paper analyzes how private decisions and public policies are shaped by personal and societal preferences (values), material or other explicit incentives (laws) and social sanctions or rewards (norms). It first examines how honor, stigma and social norms arise from individuals’ behaviors...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10009371470
Cover Image
The Big Carrot: High Stake Incentives Revisited
Brañas-Garza, Pablo; García-Muñoz, Teresa; Neuman, … - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2008
This paper provides an empirical demonstration of high stakes incentives in relation to religious practice. It shows that, when both positive (carrot) and negative (stick) incentives are available, the former are more effective than the latter. Specifically, it is shown that beliefs in heaven...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005661888
Cover Image
From Farmers to Merchants, Voluntary Conversions and Diaspora: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish History
Botticini, Maristella; Eckstein, Zvi - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2006
From the end of the second century C.E., Judaism enforced a religious norm requiring any Jewish father to educate his children. We present evidence supporting our thesis that this exogenous change in the religious and social norm had a major influence on Jewish economic and demographic history....
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005788962
Cover Image
Taboos: Considering the Unthinkable
Fershtman, Chaim; Gneezy, Uri; Hoffman, Moshe - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2008
A taboo is an "unthinkable" action, that is, even the thought of violating it triggers social punishment. Taboos are the social "thought police," discouraging individuals from considering certain type of actions. We consider a simple model in which taboos are part of the definition of one's...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005791808
Cover Image
Juvenile Delinquency and Conformism
Patacchini, Eleonora; Zenou, Yves - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2009
This paper studies whether conformism behavior affects individual outcomes in crime. We present a social network model of peer effects with ex-ante heterogeneous agents and show how conformism and deterrence affect criminal activities. We then bring the model to the data by using a very detailed...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10008491720
Cover Image
From Farmers to Merchants, Voluntary Conversions and Diaspora: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish History
Botticini, Maristella; Eckstein, Zvi - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2006
From the end of the second century C.E., Judaism enforced a religious norm requiring Jewish fathers to educate their sons. We present evidence supporting our thesis that this change in the religious and social norm had a major influence on Jewish economic and demographic history. First, the high...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005136751
Cover Image
Motivating Knowledge Agents: Can Incentive Pay Overcome Social Distance?
Berg, Erlend; Ghatak, Maitreesh; Manjula, R; Rajasekhar, D - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2013
This paper studies the interaction of incentive pay and social distance in the dissemination of information. We analyse theoretically as well as empirically the effect of incentive pay when agents have pro-social objectives, but also preferences over dealing with one social group relative to...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011145477
Cover Image
Social Capital, Government Expenditures, and Growth
Ponzetto, Giacomo AM; Troiano, Ugo - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2014
We present a tractable stochastic endogenous growth model that explains how social capital influences economic development. In our model, social capital increases citizens' awareness of government activity. Hence, it alleviates the electoral incentives to under-invest in education, whose returns...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011084642
Cover Image
Self-Esteem, Shame and Personal Motivation
Dessí, Roberta; Zhao, Xiaojian - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2011
Evidence from psychology suggests that overconfidence is more important in North America than in Japan. The pattern is reversed for shame, an emotion that appears to play a more important role among Japanese than North Americans. We develop a model that endogenizes these differences, building on...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10009399711
Cover Image
Effect of Income on Trust: Evidence from the 2009 Crisis in Russia
Ananyev, Maxim; Guriev, Sergei - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2015
This paper draws on a natural experiment to identify the relationship between income and trust. We use a unique panel … instrumenting average regional income, we find that the effect of income on generalized social trust (the share of respondents … determinants of trust, we show that 10 percent decrease in income is associated with 5 percentage point decrease in trust. Given …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011145423