Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/130301 
Year of Publication: 
2015
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 9615
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
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.
Subjects: 
social norms
norm compliance
peer effects
fair sharing
dictator game
framing
experiments
JEL: 
A13
C92
D03
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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