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We analyze the interplay between economic incentives and social norms when individuals decide whether or not to engage in criminal activity. More specifically, we assume that there is a social norm against criminal activity and that deviations from the norm result in feelings of guilt or shame. The intensity of these feelings is here endogenous in the sense that they are stronger when the population fraction obeying the norm is larger. As a consequence, a gradual reduction of the sanctions against criminal activity, or of the taxation of legal incomes, may weaken the social norm against crime. Due to the potential multiplicity of equilibria in our model, such a gradual change may even induce a discontinuous increase in the crime rate. We show that law enforcement policies may have dramatic and permanent efects on the crime rate, and lead to hysteresis. We also define political equilibrium under majority rule and show how a majority of individuals, who feel no guilt or shame from violating the law, in political equilibrium can exploit a minority who do have such feelings.

Abstract:This essay argues that moral accountability depends upon having a shared system of social norms. In particular, it argues that the Strawsonian reactive attitude of resentment is only fitting when people can reasonably expect a mutual recognition of the justified demands to which they are being held. Though such recognition should not typically be expected of moral demands that are thought to be independent of any social practice, social norms can ground such mutual recognition. On this account, a significant part of a society's social norms are also properly seen as moral norms. The essay defends this overlap of social and moral norms in contrast to views on which moral norms and social norms are sharply distinguished. Lastly, the essay concludes by addressing challenges for accountability in circumstances of norm change.

Many governments are failing to act sufficiently strongly on climate change. Given this, what should motivated affluent individuals in high-consumption societies do? This paper argues that social norms are a particularly valuable target for individual climate action. Within norm-promotion, the paper makes the case for a focus on anti-fossil fuel norms specifically. Section 1 outlines gaps in the existing literature on individuals' climate change obligations. Section 2 characterises social norms. Section 3 provides seven reasons why social norms are a particularly worthy target for individual climate actors. Section 4 asks which social norms individuals should emphasise, arguing that anti-fossil fuel norms have advantages over emissions reduction and offsetting norms. Section 5 outlines the pathways and mechanisms individuals might exploit to promote anti-fossil fuel norms.

Social norms are patterns of behavior that are self-enforcing at the group level: everyone wants to conform when they expect everyone else to conform. There are multiple mechanisms that sustain social norms, including a desire to coordinate, fear of being sanctioned, signaling membership in the group, or simply following the lead of others. This article shows how stochastic evolutionary game theory can be used to study the dynamics of norms. We illustrate with a variety of examples drawn from economics, sociology, demography, and political science. These include bargaining norms, norms governing the terms of contracts, norms of retirement, duelling, footbinding, medical treatment, and the use of contraceptives. These cases highlight the challenges of applying the theory to empirical cases. They also show that the modern theory of norm dynamics yields insights and predictions that go beyond conventional equilibrium analysis.

The article considers the ineffective balance of Russian informal institutions, which is blocking economic development. The possibilities of overcoming the inefficient equilibrium are limited by social norms, which are reproduced, among other things, in the system of higher education. Higher education is one of the most effective channels for transmitting social norms. According to the hypothesis of socialization by R. Inglehart and the hypothesis of "impressionable years" by P. Giuliano and A. Spilimbergo, the period of greatest mental plasticity, when values and behavioral attitudes are formed, falls on the period of early adulthood — from 18 to 25 years. The change in social norms in Russian universities was demonstrated on the basis of a longitudinal sociological survey of students of Russian universities conducted in 2014—2016 in 10 regions of Russia. It is proved that Russian students increase their loyalty to opportunism and violation of the rules as they grow older — there is a reproduction of inefficient social norms.

Abstract
Hindriks' paper raises two issues: one is formal and concerns the notion of 'cost' in rational choice accounts of norms; the other is substantial and concerns the role of expectations in the modification of payoffs. In this commentary I express some doubts and worries especially about the latter: What's so special with shared expectations? Why do they induce compliance with norms, if transgression is not associated with sanctions?

This article develops an account of a theory of rational choice based on the conception of rationality as a normatively justified correspondence between interests and choices. In this conception, rationality is best thought of as a property not of individual actions, but of a complex two-level phenomenon comprised of the social justification of behavioral norms and of the everyday choices made under these norms.

This article develops an account of a theory of rational choice based on the conception of rationality as a normatively justified correspondence between interests & choices. In this conception, rationality is best thought of as a property not of individual actions, but of a complex two-level phenomenon comprised of the social justification of behavioral norms & of the everyday choices made under these norms. Figures, References. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright 2006.]