Social norms or social preferences?

Ken Binmore ()

Mind & Society: Cognitive Studies in Economics and Social Sciences, 2010, vol. 9, issue 2, 139-157

Abstract: Some behavioral economists argue that the honoring of social norms can be adequately modeled as the optimization of social utility functions in which the welfare of others appears as an explicit argument. This paper suggests that the large experimental claims made for social utility functions are premature at best, and that social norms are better studied as equilibrium selection devices that evolved for use in games that are seldom studied in economics laboratories. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2010

Keywords: Social norm; Social preference; Evolutionary game theory; Behavioral economics; Inequity aversion; Ultimatum game (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (29)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11299-010-0073-2

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