The Esteem Theory of Norms
When esteem is costless to supply, does it provide an effectivemeans of enforcing norms for public goods production? I examine thebasic mechanics of an enforcement-through-esteem model. Whileesteem may enforce norms to considerable degree, systematicunderenforcement remains the general result, even in very basicsettings with a minimum of transactions costs. I also examine whyesteem has positive value in equilibrium if it can be producedcostlessly (i.e., why esteem remains scarce), and what collectiveaction problems plague the supply of esteem.
Theory and Evidence on the Role of Social Norms in Voting
This paper investigates social norms and voting behavior. I argue that social norms create incentives for signaling, i.e., voting for the purpose of being seen at the voting act. Empirical evidence on signaling can be gained by looking at the introduction of optional postal voting in Switzerland. Even though the possibility of mail voting reduced voting costs substantially, it didn't increase turnout. Consistent with my model's predictions, voter turnout decreased more in the smaller communities, but in the meantime, the share of cooperators (= interested voters) was more positively affected there. Therefore, modern voting tools may decrease average turnout, but nevertheless, increase the quality of the voting outcome. Current models predict the opposite, but ignore the effect of different voting systems on the incentive for signaling.
Relationships Between Food Preferences and Food Acceptance Ratings
A study was conducted to assess relationships between food preference ratings and food acceptability ratings. Acceptability ratings for each of two discriminably different samples of nine food items were obtained using the 9-point hedonic scale. Regression analysis indicated that no linear relationship existed between these ratings and either hedonic or frequency preference ratings of the foods. In addition, the range of acceptability ratings was smaller than the range of corresponding’preference ratings. Panelists’expressed preferences had no effect on their assignment of differential acceptance ratings to different samples of the items. Correlations between preference ratings of laboratory panelists and military field panelists were good, in spite of higher absolute preference ratings assigned by the laboratory panel.