Social Preferences and Public Economics: Are good laws a substitute for good citizens?

Samuel Bowles ()

Department of Economics University of Siena from Department of Economics, University of Siena

Abstract: Laws and policies designed to harness self-regarding preferences to public ends may fail when they compromise the beneficial effects of pro-social preferences. Experimental evidence indicates that incentives that appeal to self interest may reduce the salience of intrinsic motivation, reciprocity, and other civic motives. Motivational crowding in also occurs. The evidence for these processes is reviewed and a model of optimal explicit incentives is presented.

Keywords: Social preferences; implementation theory; incentive contracts; incomplete contracts; framing; behavioral experiments; motivational crowding out; ethical norms; constitutions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C92 D52 D64 H21 H41 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:usi:wpaper:496

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