IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mse/cesdoc/13038r.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Relevance of Social Norms for Economic Efficiency: Theory and its Empirical Test

Author

Abstract

This paper proposes a new theory of social norms that explores the relation between individuals' income, time allocation decisions, and consumption choices on the one hand, and the determinants of individuals' decision to conform or not to social norms on the other. It is shown that rational consumers may obey inefficient social norms, which in turn would slow economic development. An empirical test of the model is performed for different categories of countries using the World Values Survey, a voluminous cross-country micro dataset. The results yield the gain and the cost of disobeying inefficient social norms, the latter of which can be used as an indicator of social pressure regarding conformity

Suggested Citation

  • Anil Alpman, 2013. "The Relevance of Social Norms for Economic Efficiency: Theory and its Empirical Test," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 13038r, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne, revised Aug 2013.
    • Handle: RePEc:mse:cesdoc:13038r
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: ftp://mse.univ-paris1.fr/pub/mse/CES2013/13038R.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Douglass C. North, 2005. "Introduction to Understanding the Process of Economic Change," Introductory Chapters, in: Understanding the Process of Economic Change, Princeton University Press.
    2. George A. Akerlof, 1980. "A Theory of Social Custom, of which Unemployment may be One Consequence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 94(4), pages 749-775.
    3. Elster, Jon, 1989. "Social Norms and Economic Theory," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 99-117, Fall.
    4. Elster, Jon, 1996. "Rationality and the Emotions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(438), pages 1386-1397, September.
    5. Zwarteveen, M. Z., 1996. "A plot of one's own: gender relations and irrigated land allocation policies in Burkina Faso," IWMI Research Reports H019079, International Water Management Institute.
    6. Udry, Christopher, 1996. "Gender, Agricultural Production, and the Theory of the Household," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(5), pages 1010-1046, October.
    7. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2000. "Economics and Identity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 715-753.
    8. Bicchieri,Cristina, 2006. "The Grammar of Society," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521573726.
    9. Bicchieri,Cristina, 2006. "The Grammar of Society," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521574907.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Anil Alpman, 2013. "The Relevance of Social Norms for Economic Efficiency: Theory and its Empirical Test," Post-Print halshs-00824880, HAL.
    2. Anil Alpman, 2013. "The Relevance of Social Norms for Economic Efficiency: Theory and its Empirical Test," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00824880, HAL.
    3. Anil Alpman, 2013. "The Relevance of Social Norms for Economic Efficiency: Theory and its Empirical Test," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 13038, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    4. Golman, Russell, 2023. "Acceptable discourse: Social norms of beliefs and opinions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    5. te Velde, Vera L., 2022. "Heterogeneous norms: Social image and social pressure when people disagree," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 319-340.
    6. H Peyton Young, 2014. "The Evolution of Social Norms," Economics Series Working Papers 726, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    7. Dimant, Eugen, 2015. "On Peer Effects: Behavioral Contagion of (Un)Ethical Behavior and the Role of Social Identity," MPRA Paper 68732, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Stephen V. Burks & Daniele Nosenzo & Jon Anderson & Matthew Bombyk & Derek Ganzhorn & Lorenz Goette & Aldo Rustichini, 2015. "Lab Measures of Other-Regarding Preferences Can Predict Some Related on-the-Job Behavior: Evidence from a Large Scale Field Experiment," Discussion Papers 2015-21, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    9. Cécile Bazart & Dimitri Dubois & Kate Farrow & Lisette Ibanez & Alain Marciano & Nathalie Moureau & Rustam Romaniuc & Julie Rosaz & Sébastien Roussel, 2017. "NORMES : NORmes sociales, Motivations Externes et internes, et politiques publiqueS," Working Papers hal-02938187, HAL.
    10. Arthur Schram & Gary Charness, 2015. "Inducing Social Norms in Laboratory Allocation Choices," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(7), pages 1531-1546, July.
    11. Farrow, Katherine & Grolleau, Gilles & Ibanez, Lisette, 2017. "Social Norms and Pro-environmental Behavior: A Review of the Evidence," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 1-13.
    12. Salmon, Timothy C. & Serra, Danila, 2017. "Corruption, social judgment and culture: An experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 64-78.
    13. Pierpaolo Battigalli & Martin Dufwenberg, 2022. "Belief-Dependent Motivations and Psychological Game Theory," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(3), pages 833-882, September.
    14. Gary E. Bolton & Eugen Dimant & Ulrich Schmidt, 2020. "When a Nudge Backfires: Combining (Im)Plausible Deniability with Social and Economic Incentives to Promote Behavioral Change," CESifo Working Paper Series 8070, CESifo.
    15. Ziqi Gao & Leye Li & Louise Yi Lu, 2021. "Social Capital and Managers’ Use of Corporate Resources," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 168(3), pages 593-613, January.
    16. Anastasia Danilov & Dirk Sliwka, 2017. "Can Contracts Signal Social Norms? Experimental Evidence," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(2), pages 459-476, February.
    17. Amrish Patel & Edward Cartwright, 2009. "Social Norms and Naive Beliefs," Studies in Economics 0906, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    18. te Velde, Vera L. & Louis, Winnifred, 2022. "Conformity to descriptive norms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 204-222.
    19. Gary Bolton & Eugen Dimant & Ulrich Schmidt, 2018. "When a Nudge Backfires. Using Observation with Social and Economic Incentives to Promote Pro-Social Behavior," PPE Working Papers 0017, Philosophy, Politics and Economics, University of Pennsylvania.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social norms; social interactions; consumer behavior; household production; economic development; social pressure indicator;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    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:mse:cesdoc:13038r. 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: Lucie Label (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cenp1fr.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.