Abstract not found

. Also as predicted, adding an injunctive message (conveying social approval or disapproval) eliminated the boomerang effect. The results offer an explanation for the mixed success of persuasive appeals based on social norms and suggest how such appeals should be properly crafted. After several decades

Social norms and customs shape many economic decisions, but they have not always been at the forefront of economic analysis. Indeed, social influences were more prominently acknowledged by the founders of the discipline than by neoclassical theorists of the last century. J.S. Mill, for example

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Die ZBW räumt Ihnen als Nutzerin/Nutzer das unentgeltliche, räumlich unbeschränkte und zeitlich auf die Dauer des Schutzrechts beschränkte einfache Recht ein, das ausgewählte Werk im Rahmen der unter

This paper evaluates a pilot program run by a company called Positive Energy to mail home energy reports that compare a household’s energy use to that of its neighbors and provide energy conservation information. Using data from randomized natural …eld experiment at 80,000 treatment and control households in Minnesota, I estimate that the program reduces energy consumption by 1.9 percent relative to baseline. In a treatment group receiving reports each quarter, the e¤ects appear to decay in the intervening months, suggesting that the reports successfully motivate or remind households to conserve but that this attention or motivation is not durable. I show that “pro…ling,”or using a statistical decision rule to target the program at households whose observable characteristics suggest larger treatment e¤ects, could substantially improve cost e¤ectiveness in future programs. The e¤ects of this program provide additional evidence that non-price “nudges”can substantially a¤ect consumer behavior.

This chapter is concerned with the dynamics of social norms. In particular the chapter concentrates on the lifecycle that social norms go through, focusing on the generation of norms, the way that norms spread and stabilize, and finally evolve. We also discuss the cognitive mechanisms behind norm

into place to regulate fertility. When the economic environment changes, individuals gradually learn through their social interactions about the new reproductive equilibrium that will emerge in their community. This characterization of the fertility transition as a process of changing social norms is applied

and the content of social norms. Further experiments indicate that second parties, whose economic payoff is reduced by the norm violation, punish the violation much more strongly than do third parties.

Paper presented on the session „Solidarity and social norms – models and mechanisms“, Sektion Modellbildung und Simulation, Leipzig, October 2002 * Manuela Vieth detected an error in an earlier version of this paper. We would like to thank