Moral Norms in a Partly Compliant Society

Sebastian Kranz

No 11/2006, Bonn Econ Discussion Papers from University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE)

Abstract: This paper analyses competition of moral norms and institutions in a society where a fixed share of people unconditionally complies with norms and the remaining people act selfishly. Whether a person is a norm-complier or selfish is private knowledge. A model of voting-by-feet shows that those norms and institutions arise that maximize expected utility of norm-compliers, taken into account selfish players' behavior. Such complier optimal norms lead to a simple behavioral model that, when combined with preferences for equitable outcomes, is in line with the relevant stylized facts from a wide range of economic experiments, like reciprocal behavior, costly punishment, the role of intentions, giving in dictator games and concerns for social efficiency. The paper contributes to the literature on voting-by-feet, institutional design, ethics and social preferences.

Keywords: moral norms; social preferences; reciprocity; fairness; rule utilitarianism; voting-by-feet; cultural evolution; golden rule; social norms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 C7 D02 D63 D64 D71 D8 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/22956/1/bgse11_2006.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Moral norms in a partly compliant society (2010)
Working Paper: Moral Norms in a Partly Compliant Society (2006)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:bonedp:112006

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Bonn Econ Discussion Papers from University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().