Estimates of the effect of school-imposed penalties for drug use on a student’s consumption of marijuana are biased if both are determined by unobservable school or individual attributes. Reverse causality is also a potential challenge to retrieving estimates of the causal relationship, as the severity of school sanctions may simply reflect the need for moresevere sanctions. Using the National ...

We provide lab data from four different games that allow us to study whether people have accurate expectations regarding monetary sanctions (punishment/reward) and non-monetary sanctions (disapproval/approval). Although the strength of the sanction is always predicted with some error (particularly in the case of monetary sanctions), we observe that (i) most subjects anticipate correctly the sig...

Social norms involve observation by others and external sanctions for violations, while moral norms involve introspection and internal sanctions. To study such norms and their effects, we design a laboratory experiment. We examine dictator choices, where we create a shared understanding by providing advice from peers with no financial payoff at stake. We vary whether advice is given, as well as...

Social norms involve observation by others and external sanctions for violations, while moral norms involve introspection and internal sanctions. To study such norms and their effects, we design a laboratory experiment. We examine dictator choices, where we create a shared understanding by providing advice from peers with no financial payoff at stake. We vary whether advice is given, as well as...

Many states, or rather their leaders and officials, routinely violate the fundamental human rights of both their compatriots or outsiders. Faced with this depressing catalogue of abuses, the international community’s response of choice consists in imposing economic sanctions on wrongdoers. The relatively scant philosophical literature on the topic tackles primary sanctions where the sanctioning...

the imposition of comprehensive sanctions by targeting the whole population in a sanctioned state causes a wide range of problems for the people and particularly the weak groups of society. to limit the time and the scope of sanctions is a method to reduce negative consequences of sanctions, specifically comprehensive ones. in other words, determining time limits as well as objective and subjec...

In this paper, we compare the cause and effect of immaterial rewards and sanctions on cooperation in a voluntary contributions experiment. We find that both rewards and sanctions increase contributions only when subjects interact repeatedly, though rewards seem to be more effective than sanctions. Moreover, in contrast to sanctions, rewards do have an impact on future contributions. Although th...

Robert Putnam defines social capital as “features of social organization, such as networks, norms and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation” (Putnam 1995: 67). Such networks are typically associated with norms that promote coordination, cooperation and reciprocity for the mutual benefit of network members. These norms, coupled with the appropriate use of sanctions in case of...

The legume-rhizobium symbiosis is an ideal model for studying the factors that limit the evolution of microbial mutualists into parasites. Legumes are unable to consistently recognize parasitic rhizobia that, once established inside plant cells, use plant resources for their own reproduction rather than for N2 fixation. Evolution of parasitism in rhizobia, driven partly by competition among mul...

A long-lived firm sells a good to a sequence of consumers, where the good’s quality imperfectly depends on the firm’s unobservable e§ort. To solve the moral hazard problem, the firm can promise to pay damages (formal sanctions) or facilitate reputational punishment (informal sanctions). Formal sanctions engender litigation costs and possible court error while informal sanctions involve ine¢cien...