The Importance of Peers for Compliance with Norms of Fair Sharing

Simon Gächter, Leonie Gerhards () and Daniele Nosenzo
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Leonie Gerhards: University of Hamburg

No 9615, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: A burgeoning literature in economics has started examining the role of social norms in explaining economic behavior. Surprisingly, the vast majority of this literature has studied social norms in asocial decision settings, where individuals are observed to act in isolation from each other. In this paper we use a large-scale dictator game experiment (N = 850) to show that the presence of "peers" in the decision setting faced by an individual can have a profound influence on the individual's perception of the decision situation and its underlying norms of sharing, as elicited in an incentive compatible way. However, we find limited evidence that this influence of peers in normative considerations translates into a corresponding effect in actual behavior. Partly, this is due to substantial heterogeneity in the extent to which dictators in our sample are willing to comply with norms of fair sharing.

Keywords: social norms; norm compliance; peer effects; fair sharing; dictator game; framing; experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 C92 D03 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 55 pages
Date: 2015-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp, nep-hpe, nep-net and nep-soc
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Published - revised version published in: European Economic Review, 2017, 97, 72-86

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Related works:
Journal Article: The importance of peers for compliance with norms of fair sharing (2017)
Working Paper: The Importance of Peers for Compliance with Norms of Fair Sharing (2017)
Working Paper: The importance of peers for compliance with norms of fair sharing (2015)
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