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Full-Text Articles in Law
Charity And Information: Correcting The Failure Of A Disjunctive Social Norm, Robert D. Cooter, Brian Broughman
Charity And Information: Correcting The Failure Of A Disjunctive Social Norm, Robert D. Cooter, Brian Broughman
Robert Cooter
Charitable donations fund social goods that the state and markets undersupply. While some people donate much to charity, most Americans donate little or nothing. Experiments in behavioral economics show that anonymity, not human nature, causes low contributions. Disclosure of each individual’s aggregate conduct is necessary for the effectiveness of any disjunctive social norm, including charity. We propose a public registry where each taxpayer can voluntarily disclose the ratio between his charitable giving and income. The registry will clarify the social norm and increase average donations. We extend our analysis to pro bono legal services where a similar registry would encourage …
The Misperception Of Norms: The Psychology Of Bias And The Economics Of Equilibrium, Robert D. Cooter, Mical Feldman, Yuval Feldman
The Misperception Of Norms: The Psychology Of Bias And The Economics Of Equilibrium, Robert D. Cooter, Mical Feldman, Yuval Feldman
Robert Cooter
This study combines the psychology of bias and the economics of equilibrium. We focus on two of the most discussed perceptual biases found by psychologists who studied the role social norms in ethical decision making. First, psychologists found a general tendency of people to over-estimate how many other people engage in unethical behavior. We show that this bias causes more people to violate the norm than if the bias were corrected. Second, psychologists found a general tendency of a person to over-estimate how many other people act the same as he does. We show that this bias does not change …