IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/osloec/2014_015.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Skewed Norms under Peer Pressure: Formation and Collapse

Author

Listed:
  • Michaeli, Moti

    (Department of Economics, and Center for the Study of Rationality, the Hebrew University,)

  • Spiro, Daniel

    (Dept. of Economics, University of Oslo)

Abstract

This paper shows that peer pressure may lead to dynamic convergence to a norm that is skewed with respect to preferences in society, yet is endogenously upheld by the population. Moreover, a skewed norm will often be more sustainable than a representative norm. This may explain the skewness of various social and religious norms. By furthermore interpreting a norm as a political regime, we show that biased regimes can be sustained even without the existence of a powerful group with coherent interests. We analyze the pattern by which political regimes collapse and relate it to contemporary revolutions and mass protests.

Suggested Citation

  • Michaeli, Moti & Spiro, Daniel, 2014. "Skewed Norms under Peer Pressure: Formation and Collapse," Memorandum 15/2014, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:osloec:2014_015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sv.uio.no/econ/english/research/unpublished-works/working-papers/pdf-files/2014/memo-15-2014.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gordon Tullock, 1971. "The paradox of revolution," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 89-99, September.
    2. Robin Naylor, 1989. "Strikes, Free Riders, and Social Customs," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(4), pages 771-785.
    3. Michaeli, Moti & Spiro, Daniel, 2013. "The Distribution of Individual Conformity under Social Pressure across Societies," Memorandum 12/2014, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    4. Rubin, Jared, 2014. "Centralized institutions and cascades," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 340-357.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jo Thori Lind & Daniel Chen, 2016. "The Political Economy Of Beliefs: Why Fiscal And Social Conservatives/Liberals Come Hand-In-Hand," 2016 Meeting Papers 606, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Moti Michaeli & Daniel Spiro, "undated". "The dynamics of revolutions," Working Papers WP2017/8, University of Haifa, Department of Economics.
    2. Alessandro Moro, 2016. "Understanding the Dynamics of Violent Political Revolutions in an Agent-Based Framework," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(4), pages 1-17, April.
    3. Dorsch, Michael T. & Maarek, Paul, 2018. "Rent extraction, revolutionary threat, and coups in non-democracies," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 1082-1103.
    4. Apolte, Thomas, 2022. "Mass protests, security-elite defection, and revolution," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 981-996.
    5. Abraham Aldama & Mateo Vásquez-Cortés & Lauren Elyssa Young, 2019. "Fear and citizen coordination against dictatorship," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 31(1), pages 103-125, January.
    6. Bruno Frey, 2011. "Tullock challenges: happiness, revolutions, and democracy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 148(3), pages 269-281, September.
    7. Pierre Courtois & Rabia Nessah & Tarik Tazdaït, 2024. "Revolutions and rational choice: A critical discussion," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 200(3), pages 497-529, September.
    8. Dagaev, Dmitry & Lamberova, Natalia & Sobolev, Anton, 2019. "Stability of revolutionary governments in the face of mass protest," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    9. Louis Rouanet, 2024. "On the tendency of revolutions to devour their own children," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 200(3), pages 603-626, September.
    10. Joshua Tasoff, 2014. "Placation and provocation," Rationality and Society, , vol. 26(1), pages 73-104, February.
    11. Hummel Jeffrey Rogers & Lavoie Don, 1994. "National Defense And The Public-Goods Problem," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 5(2-3), pages 353-378, June.
    12. Askildsen, Jan Erik & Nilsen, Oivind Anti, 2002. "Union membership and wage formation," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 345-363, June.
    13. Kikuta,Kyosuke, 2024. "Eclipse: How Darkness Shapes Violence in Africa," IDE Discussion Papers 941, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    14. Shadmehr, Mehdi & Bernhardt, Dan, 2011. "Collective Action with Uncertain Payoffs: Coordination, Public Signals, and Punishment Dilemmas," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(4), pages 829-851, November.
    15. Dong, Bin & Dulleck, Uwe & Torgler, Benno, 2012. "Conditional corruption," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 609-627.
    16. Carlos Seiglie, 1997. "The Political Economy of Trade Sanctions: The Case of Cuba," Annual Proceedings, The Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, vol. 7.
    17. Adlai Newson & Francesco Trebbi, 2018. "Authoritarian elites," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(4), pages 1088-1117, November.
    18. Thomas Apolte, "undated". "Why is there no Revolution in North-Korea? The Political Economy of Revolution Revisited," Working Papers 200102, Institute of Spatial and Housing Economics, Munster Universitary.
    19. Leeson, Peter T., 2010. "Rational choice, Round Robin, and rebellion: An institutional solution to the problems of revolution," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(3), pages 297-307, March.
    20. Gachter, Simon & Fehr, Ernst, 1999. "Collective action as a social exchange," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 341-369, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Peer pressure; Social norm; Revolution; Protest movement; Alienation; Religion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • Z10 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - General
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:osloec:2014_015. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Mari Strønstad Øverås (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/souiono.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.