This paper studies the causal effect of status differences on moral disengagement and violence. To measure violent behavior, in the experiment, a subject can inflict a painful electric shock on another subject in return for money. We exogenously vary relative status in the realm of sexual attractiveness. In three between-subject conditions, the assigned other subject is either of higher, lower ...

Extensive multilingualism is one of the most important and fundamental principles of the European Union (EU). However, a large number of languages (currently 23) hinders communication and imposes substantial …nancial and legal costs. On the other hand, the reduction of the number of languages would disenfranchise some or many EU citizens. We use the results of a survey on languages and argue th...

We develop a theory of ‘behavioral communities’ and the ‘atomic structure’ of networks. We define atoms to be groups of agents whose behaviors always match each other in a set of coordination games played on the network. This provides a microfoundation for a method of detecting communities in social and economic networks. We provide theoretical results characterizing such behavior-based communi...

This paper identifies matches on the male and female professional tennis tours in which one player faces a high payoff from being “on the bubble” of direct entry into one of the lucrative Grand Slam tournaments, while their opposition does not. Analyzing over 378,000 matches provides strong evidence for corrupt behavior on the men’s tour, as bubble players are substantially more likely to beat ...

Do Peers Affect Student Achievement? Evidence from Canada Using Group Size Variation We provide the first empirical application of a new approach proposed by Lee (2007) to estimate peer effects in a linear-in-means model. This approach allows to control for grouplevel unobservables and to solve the reflection problem. We investigate peer effects in student achievement in Mathematics, Science, F...

This paper provides a systematic analysis of identification in linear social interactions models. This is both a theoretical and an econometric exercise as the analysis is linked to a rigorously delineated model of interdependent decisions. We develop an incomplete information game that describes individual choices in the presence of social interactions. The equilibrium strategy profiles are li...

Parents in several cultures `discipline' their daughters to inculcate the supposedly feminine virtues and improve their prospects in the marriage market. This process invariably involves imposing restrictions on their behavior, movement, and social relations. We formalize the idea that pre-marital confinement of women can be understood as an equilibrium outcome of a game of asymmetric informati...

Ofer H. Azar* Department of Economics Northwestern University June 2003 Abstract The paper presents a model of the evolution of social norms. When a norm is costly to follow and people do not derive benefits from following it except for avoiding social disapproval, the norm erodes over time. Tip percentages, however, increased over the years, suggesting that people derive benefits from tipping,...

Women earn less than men but are not less satisfied with life. This paper argues that norms on the appropriate pay for women compared to men explain these findings. We take citizens’ approval of an equal rights amendment to the Swiss constitution as a proxy for the norm that “women and men shall have the right to equal pay for work of equal value”. We find that the gender wage gap narrows by on...

In this paper a model for the formation of strategic alliances is studied. Innovation results from the recombination of knowledge held by the partners to the collaboration, and from the history of their collaboration. Innovation brings partners closer together, while at the same time the repetition of partnerships fosters trust and helps improving the outcome of each round of cooperation. A ten...