CeDEx
Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics

CeDEx Seminar/ Senior Academic Seminar - David K Levine (European University Institute)

Location
A41 Sir Clive Granger Building
Date(s)
Wednesday 30th October 2019 (15:00-16:30)
Description

This seminar is joint with the Senior Academic Seminar Series.

Interventions with sticky social norms: A critique (with Rohan Dutta and Salvatore Modica)

Abstract:

We study the consequences of policy interventions when social norms are endogenous but costly to change. In our environment a group faces a negative externality that it partially mitigates through social norms enforced through peer pressure. In this setting policy interventions can have unexpected consequences. When the cost of norm redesign is high introducing a Pigouvian tax can increase output and when the cost of norm redesign is low intervention may lead instead to tax repeal.

Keywords: endogenous social norms, natural experiments, randomized control trials

Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics

Sir Clive Granger Building
University of Nottingham
University Park
Nottingham, NG7 2RD

telephone: +44 (0)115 951 5458
Enquiries: jose.guinotsaporta@nottingham.ac.uk
Experiments: cedex@nottingham.ac.uk