Enforcing Social Norms : How Economics Shapes Reputation and Social Punishment

• This thesis investigates how the economic environment shapes levels of trust and cooperation and the nature of norm enforcement. The idea that many social norms can be understood as an effective response to challenges presented by the economic and ecological environment has significant empirical support. However, few theoretical models study this relationship in detail.Many existing models of reputation are driven by imperfect information. However, information frictions are often assumed rather than derived. The first paper 'Reputation on Networks', uses a network model to investigate how the structure of a communication network affects the value of reputation. The results suggest an inverted U-shaped relationship between trust and the level of clustering in a network. High levels of clustering limit the number of potential partners agents have access to and lower the value of reputation. While, when networks become too open trust is undermined because agents become information gatekeepers for their reputation.The second paper 'Reputation, Punishment and the Informal Enforcement of Norms', looks at informal enforcement when reputation and costly social punishment are considered within the same framework. The results suggest a complementary relationship between these two forms of social punishment. Because reputation leverages a third-party punishment threat over many future interactions, the mechanism provides a novel and compelling explanation of costly third-party and altruistic punishment. Unlike other models, the theory provides predictions about the overall intensity of social punishment and how this varies with the combined package of behaviours a community regulates using social norms.The third paper 'Ingroup Norms and Relation Specific Punishment', considers when agents can maintain or renegotiate trust with a defector, either bilaterally or within an identifiable group. These agents will adopt an ingroup norm such that members who defect outside the group are still trusted within it. The results detail when agents are individually motivated to punish their friends and ingroup members to support reputation-based trust beyond the group. The analysis provides a novel explanation for ingroup bias and details the conditions for inter-group trust and where relation-specific or ingroup norms will be adopted over universal ones.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

norms

reputation

social punishment

group bias

Economics

nationalekonomi

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

dok (ämneskategori)