Respect

Alan Manning ()

CEP Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Performance, LSE

Abstract: Becker (1974) introduced to modern economics the idea that others care about what othersthink about them and derived many useful insights from this assumption. But he did notprovide a very complete description of the general equilibrium of an economy in whichpeople both demand respect from and supply respect to others. This paper analyzes theequilibrium price of respect, showing how it depends on the distribution of materialendowments and discussing whether we would expect that, as society gets richer, the marketfor respect becomes more or less important. It explains why a demand for respect is a humanuniversal in terms of Becker's observation that this helps to provide insurance where marketsare absent. Although the demand for respect is universal, the activities that command respecthave enormous cultural diversity - the paper explains how there can be many Nash equilibriaif respect is withheld from those who violate prescribed behaviour. Finally the paperdiscusses where, in a modern economy, respect is demanded and supplied arguing it isprimarily bundled up with other goods and services because of the nature of the costs ofsupplying it.

Keywords: Respect; Status; Pro-Social Preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D51 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe and nep-soc
Date: 2007-05
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp0793

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