Some economists believe that social norms are created to improve welfare where the market fails. I show that tipping is such a norm, using a model in which a waiter chooses service quality and then a customer chooses the tip. The customer's utility depends on the social norm about tipping and...

In human societies, overcoming incentives to act selfishly is immensely important so as to promote prosocial behaviours. Social norms and relational utility, utility generated by such feelings as guilt, are mechanisms by which cooperation and coordination can be facilitated. Here we add...

Social norms permeate society across a wide range of issues and are important to understanding how societies function. In this paper we concentrate on 'bad' social norms - those that are inefficient or even damaging to a group. This paper explains how bad social norms evolve and persist; our...

We consider a model of conformity that permits a non-conformist equilibrium and multiple conformist equilibria. Agents are assumed to behave according to a best reply learning dynamic. We details the conditions under which a social norm and conformity emerge. The emergence of conformity depends...

Interdependencies in consumer behavior stem from either status-seeking consumption or compliance with social norms. This paper analyzes how a consumption act changes from a means to signal the consumer's status to a means of norm compliance. It is shown that such a transformation can only be...

That institutions matter is widely accepted among economists and so are social norms as an important category of informal institutions. Social norms matter in many economic situations, but in particular for markets. The economic literature has studied the interrelation between markets and social...

In Part I, we argue that Economics must outgrow the narrow confines of Neo-Classical Economics to embrace ‘sociality’ first championed by Herbert Simon in the mid-1950s and now by a growing number of economists under the banner of Social Economics. We contend here that Neo-Classical...

Consumption theory has always been a neglected field in Post Keynesian economics, whereas it is at the center of New Keynesian economics. This paper investigates similarities and differences between the two approaches. I will show that the newer mainstream models indeed give results that are...

That institutions matter is widely accepted among economists and so are social norms as an important category of informal institutions. Social norms matter in many economic situations, but in particular for markets. The economic literature has studied the interrelation between markets and social...

We analyze the interplay between economic incentives and social norms when individuals decide whether or not to engage in criminal activity. More specifically, we assume that there is a social norm against criminal activity and that deviations from the norm result in feelings of guilt or shame....