An important question about social norms is whether they are created to increase welfare; I address it by examining the characteristics of tipped and non-tipped occupations. Tipping prevalence is negatively correlated with worker’s income and consumer’s monitoring ability and positively with...

Tipping illustrates the importance of social norms in motivating economic behavior. People tip because this is the social norm and disobeying norms results in social disapproval that creates emotional disutility. Tipping is also economically important: in the United States alone, millions of...