| 1. |
- Jackson, David, 1973-
(författare)
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Enforcing Social Norms : How Economics Shapes Reputation and Social Punishment
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- 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.
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| 2. |
- Ekström, Mathias, 1982-
(författare)
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Cues, Conformity, and Choice Architecture : Empirical Essays on Influence
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of three papers summarized as follows. “Can Indifference Make the World Greener?” We test whether the default option can nudge people to save resources in a simple, non-dynamic, decision task with only two alternatives, and where people have been explicitly informed about the recommended course of action. In a natural field experiment we switch printers’ default option, from one-sided to two-sided printing, at a random point in time. The results confirm that roughly one third of all printing is determined by the default alternative, and a green default therefore saves resources on average about 15 percent. “Is Liking Contagious?” In this paper we set up a natural field experiment on the social networking service Facebook to study whether people are more prone to Like a status update if someone else has done so before. We distinguish between three treatments: (i) one unknown person Likes the update, (ii) three unknown persons Like the update and (iii) the most connected person Likes the update. Whereas the first condition had no effect, the latter two more than doubled the probability to press the Like button, implying that both the number of predecessors and social proximity matters. Neither limited attention, nor observational learning, is consistent with the results. Conformity is therefore the most plausible mechanism behind our finding. “Do Watching Eyes Affect Charitable Giving? Evidence from a Field Experiment” The presence of implicit observation cues, such as picture of eyes, has been shown to increase generosity in dictator games, and cooperative behavior in field settings. In this paper I test if a picture of watching eyes affects unconditional giving in a natural environment, where the recipient is a charity organization. This setting avoids: (i) experimenter demand effects, (ii) that the facial cue reminds subjects of a human counterpart, and (iii) a social multiplier effect. I find no general effect, but during days when relatively few other people visited a store the picture of eyes increased donated amount by 30 percent. This result indicates that subtle social cues can invoke reputation concerns in humans.
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| 3. |
- Naranjo R., Alberto J., 1974-
(författare)
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Drugonomics : Industrial Organization of Illegal Drug Markets
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Insurgents, drug lords and anti-drug supply policies in the Andes. The United States has spent enormous resources on supply policies to decrease illegal drug production in the Andes and availability in the U.S. market. However, evidence suggests increased drug production and availability over time. Moreover, insurgent activities in the region have also increased. We present an explanation for these unexpected trends by analyzing an illicit drug market where drug lords and insurgents interact. The analysis suggests that supply policies increase drug production and insurgent activity while having no effect on drug availability and prices.Counter-intuitive effects of domestic law enforcement policies in the United States. In spite of the increase in domestic law enforcement policies in the U.S., illegal drug distribution activities have followed a non-monotonic trend and cocaine and heroin prices have been dropping or have remained stable over time. This paper provides an explanation for these counter-intuitive effects. We model how drug lords respond to this type of policy and predict distribution activities, prices and drug consumption in the United States.Spillover effects of domestic law enforcement policies. Independent efforts by local and state governments in the United States to combat illegal drug markets are in contrast with a global market where drugs are sold and distributed simultaneously in different locations. We study the effect that domestic law enforcement policies may have on this global context. The external effects of these policies induce overspending by governments, but a low level of global drug consumption. Competition effects are also studied.Drive-by competition? Violence in the drug market. Today, the retail distribution of most illegal drugs is mainly in the hands of street gangs that also account for most of the drug related violence in many states and cities in the United States. Interestingly, the level of violence in drug markets appears to vary with the type of drug. Based on the notion that gangs use violence strategically to compete for customers we find that both the effectiveness of violence in shifting demand and the cost of switching supplier by users affect the level of violence in the market. Indirect effects of anti-drug policies are discussed.
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| 4. |
- Rapanos, Theodoros, 1985-
(författare)
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Essays on the Economics of Networks Under Incomplete Information
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Social networks constitute a major channel for the diffusion of information and the formation of attitudes in a society. Introducing a dynamic model of social learning, the first part of this thesis studies the emergence of socially influential individuals and groups, and identifies the characteristics that make them influential. The second part uses a Bayesian network game to analyse the role of social interaction and conformism in the making of decisions whose returns or costs are ex ante uncertain.
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| 5. |
- Sternbeck Fryxell, Vanessa, 1984-
(författare)
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Essays on Interbank Markets
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation consists of three self-contained chapters.Price Segmentation on the Interbank Market. Interbank markets are often characterized by a core-periphery structure. The core-banks may hold a favorable position in the short-term unsecured interbank market due to e.g. greater market knowledge, market power, and stronger relationships. In this chapter, I use a data set on the total unsecured interbank lending and borrowing made by the seven largest banks in Sweden. I find that there exists a significant segmentation in prices for core-banks vs. periphery-banks. In addition, the size of the segmentation in pricing is connected to the amount of liquidity available on the interbank market. This means that monetary policy instruments that increase the size of the liquidity surplus risk increase the segmentation in prices and thereby diminish the efficiency of the implementation of monetary policy through the main monetary policy rate.Systemic Liquidity Risk on the Swedish Interbank Market. This chapter aims at measuring systemic liquidity risk on the Swedish interbank market using the novel approach of Cohen-Cole, Patacchini and Zenou (2015), allowing for both positive and negative measures of systemic liquidity risk. This chapter brings this model to the data, using restricted Swedish interbank data collected by the Riksbank where it is possible to identify the banks of the data sets, thereby allowing us to control for bank-specific characteristics. We find that the systemic liquidity risk increased in 2008-2009 as the banks became reluctant to both lend and borrow. For lending networks, this is expected because of the decrease in confidence between banks. For borrowing, this is likely a result of the vast increase in available liquidity stemming from loan facilities by the central bank. The implication is that liquidity shocks were amplified in the interbank network. In addition, we identify the Key Player among banks and show that this does not coincide with simple measures such as degree and total volume, and can thus complement the analysis in identifying systemically important institutions.Committed Quotes in Reference Rate Mechanisms. When the LIBOR scandal was revealed in 2012, it became clear that interbank reference rates were manipulated. Following this revelation, policy makers around the world started to suggest adjustments to decrease the risk of manipulation. One of these adjustments that was presented was the committed quotes reference rate mechanism that forces the banks to trade with each other using the submitted quotes. In this chapter, I study the panel bank's change in behavior following the introduction of a committed quotes mechanism using data on submitted quotes for the Copenhagen Interbank Offered Rate (CIBOR). The results suggest that the behavior of the banks changed; the intraday variance increased by more than 40 percent in connection with the introduction. I also present a simple model to illustrate the underlying reasons for the detected change in behavior. The driving force in the model is the banks' desire to submit quotes close to the expected market rate. Introducing a commitment to trade on the quotes then pushes the submissions closer to the banks' interest rates which leads to a larger intraday variance. However, the quotes will never, everything else unchanged, equal the banks' interest rates.
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| 6. |
- Xiao, Wei, 1981-
(författare)
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Migration, Crime and Search in Spatial Markets
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Search Frictions, Unemployment, and Housing in Cities: Theory and PoliciesWe propose an urban search-matching model with land development. We characterize the steady-state equilibrium and then discuss the issue of efficiency. We find that the transportation and housing policies are more efficient if the unemployment rate is low, while the entry-cost policy is more efficient if the unemployment rate is high.Land Development, Search Frictions, and City StructureThis paper analyzes the interactions between labor and housing (and land) markets in a city. Unemployment, the spatial structure of a city, land development, housing demand, prices of housing and land are all endogenously determined. Then, we characterize two different spatial configurations. To better understand how two equilibria are affected by land and labor market parameters, we implement a comparative steady state analysis. We further explored the effects of policies.Search for Jobs or Crimes?This paper develops a competitive search model where unemployed workers allocate their time between the search for legal jobs and opportunities for committing crimes. We analyze the effects of labor market policies and crime policies. We show that the market equilibrium is socially inefficient when there is crime. We also find that workers' individual choice of years of education is less than the socially efficient one.Rural-Urban Migration in Developing Countries: Labor Market Institutions and PoliciesThe paper studies rural-urban migration under different labor market institutions in developing countries. Specifically, we consider two types of labor market institutions where workers in urban firms are unionized or not. We find that unionization of workers raises unemployment, urban wages, and rural employment, reduces rural wages and urban employment and increases inequality between the rural and the urban sector. We also compare two institutions under different policies.
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