The selfish life-cycle model or hypothesis is, together with the dynasty or altruism model, the most widely used theoretical model of household behavior in economics, but does this model apply in the case of a country like Japan, which is said to have closer family ties than other countries? In...

We study horizontal between-group cultural transmission using a unique historical experiment. During WWII, Stalin deported over 2 million people---mostly Germans and Chechens---to Siberia and Central Asia solely based on their ethnicity. As a result, the native population of the deportation...

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...

Gender norms, i.e. the role of men and women in the society, are a fundamental channel through which culture may influence preferences for redistribution and public policies. We consider both cross-country and individual level evidence on this mechanism. We find that in countries that are...