Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/21154 
Year of Publication: 
2001
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 300
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Social norms are usually neglected in economics, because they are to a large extent enforced through non-market interactions and difficult to isolate empirically. In this paper, we offer a direct measure of the social norm to work and we show that this norm has important economic effects. The stronger the norm, the more quickly unemployed people find a new job. This behavior can be explained by utility differences, probably due to social pressure. Unemployed people are significantly less happy than employed people and their reduction in life satisfaction is the larger, the stronger the norm is.
Subjects: 
job searching
social norms
subjective well-being
unemployment
duration of unemployment
JEL: 
F22
J61
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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