This paper shows that reciprocity has powerful implications for many economic domains. It is an important determinant in the enforcement of contracts and social norms and enhances the possibilities of collective action greatly. Reciprocity may render the provision of explicit incentive...

When working together, people engage in non-contractual and informal interactions that constitute the sociology of the group. We use behavioral models and a unique survey of medical groups to analyze how group sociology influences physician incentive pay and behavior. We conclude that informal...

Can gender-balanced social norms mitigate the gender gap in competitiveness that has been documented for modern as well as traditional patriarchic societies? We identify a society in northeast India where women and men have had similar rights and entitlements from time immemorial, to conduct the...

Inadequate hygiene during menstruation can have severe consequences, such as adverse health effects, lower educational attainment and higher work absenteeism. Cultural taboos and social norms surrounding menstruation may be responsible for misinformation on menstrual hygiene and may also prevent...

This paper examines how culture determines within-couple gender inequality. Exploiting the setting of Germany's division and reunification, I compare child penalties of couples socialised in a more gender-egalitarian culture to those in a gendertraditional culture. The long-run penalty on the...

Using individual-level data from the European Social Survey, we study the relevance of gender norms in accounting for the motherhood employment gap across 186 European NUTS2 regions (over 29 countries) for the 2002-2016 period. The gender norm variable is taken from a question on whether “men...

This paper studies the effect of emigration on gender norms in countries of migrants’ origin. We use an instrumental variable strategy that allows us to estimate a causal effect of emigration on gender inequality. Our findings suggest that emigration to countries with low (high) levels of...

The success of non-pharmaceutical interventions to contain pandemics often depends greatly upon voluntary compliance with government guidelines. What explains variation in voluntary compliance? Using mobile phone and survey data, we show that during the early phases of COVID-19, voluntary social...