Institutions, Shared Guilt, and Moral Transgression

Dominik Rothenhäusler, Nikolaus Schweizer and Nora Szech

No 5525, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Many tasks can only be completed if several people contribute. Likewise, many institutions, e.g. voting rules, require the support of several people to implement specific decisions. In such situations, individual costs from supporting may decrease in the number of supporters. This holds true for physical costs in division of labor. Psychological, sociological and economic evidence suggests that also moral costs due to feelings of guilt or having a bad conscience diffuse. This paper analyzes the influence of diffusion of costs in threshold public good games under incomplete information, and compares predictions to those when costs do not diffuse.

Keywords: moral decision making; division of labor; shared guilt; diffusion of responsibility; institutions and morals; committee decisions; moral transgression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D02 D03 D23 D63 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Institutions, Shared Guilt, and Moral Transgression (2014)
Working Paper: Institutions, shared guilt, and moral transgression (2013)
Working Paper: Institutions, shared guilt, and moral transgression (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_5525

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