 What Can Economics Teach Us about Santa Claus?Barna Bakó and Peter Isztin () Society and Economy, 2017, vol. 39, issue 3, 349-358 Abstract: In this paper we sketch a theory about the role of supernatural beliefs in incentivizing “good” behavior among children by parents. We present a simple theory on the production and the use of certain supernatural beliefs by parents to influence their children’s behavior. A prime example of this is the idea of Santa Claus and the idea that Santa Claus rewards children according to how well they have behaved during the year. We show that under standard conditions parents face a time inconsistency problem when trying to incentivize their offspring. We claim that the production of beliefs in certain supernatural or quasi-supernatural persons who allegedly have infinite lives can help parents discipline their children. Finally, we extend this logic to a community and its ruler or rulers. We show that rulers can have incentives to influence the beliefs of their subjects. This incentive is greater whenever the ruler is a monopolist and when he or she expects to rule for a long period. Rulers with limited ability and/or superior technology for producing beliefs will also supply more supernatural stories to enforce their rule. Keywords: family economics; supernatural beliefs (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aka:soceco:v:39:y:2017:i:3:p:349-358 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Society and Economy is currently edited by Szent-Iványi, Balázs More articles in Society and Economy from Akadémiai Kiadó, Hungary |
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