Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/82516 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 2011:13
Publisher: 
Uppsala University, Department of Economics, Uppsala
Abstract: 
This paper offers an explanation to why the general observation that elderly hold stronger moral attitudes than young ones may be an age rather than a cohort effect. We apply mechanisms from social psychology to explain how personal norms may evolve over the life cycle. We assume that people update their norms influenced by their own past behavior (e.g., cognitive dissonance) and/or by the attitudes of their peers (normative conformity). We apply the theory on actual norm distributions for young and old concerning tax evasion. Allowing for heterogeneous updating of norms where only those who identify with their network are actually conforming with it, while the others are only influenced by their own past behavior, we can explain the difference between young and old people's moral values as an age effect through endogenous norm formation.
Subjects: 
Social norms
Endogenous norms
Tax evasion
Cognitive dissonance
Self-signaling
Normative conformity
JEL: 
D03
H26
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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