Caste and punishment: the legacy of caste culture in norm enforcement

Karla Hoff, Mayuresh Kshetramade and Ernst Fehr

No 476, IEW - Working Papers from Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich

Abstract: Well-functioning groups enforce social norms that restrain opportunism, but the social structure of a society may encourage or inhibit norm enforcement. Here we study how the exogenous assignment to different positions in an extreme social hierarchy � the caste system � affects individuals� willingness to punish violations of a cooperation norm. Although we control for individual wealth, education, and political participation, low caste individuals exhibit a much lower willingness to punish norm violations that hurt members of their own caste, suggesting a cultural difference across caste status in the concern for members of one�s own community. The lower willingness to punish may inhibit the low caste�s ability to sustain collective action and so may contribute to its economic vulnerability.

Keywords: Social norms; informal sanctions; third party punishment; endogenous social preferences; social exclusion; collective action; caste (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D02 D64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa, nep-evo, nep-exp and nep-soc
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Related works:
Journal Article: Caste and Punishment: the Legacy of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement (2011)
Working Paper: Caste and Punishment: The Legacy of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement (2009)
Working Paper: Caste and punishment: the legacy of caste culture in norm enforcement (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zur:iewwpx:476

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