Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP15776
Authors: Selim Gulesci; Sam Jindani; Eliana La Ferrara; David Smerdon; Munshi Sulaiman; H Peyton Young
Abstract: Harmful social norms often persist despite legal and economic sanctions against them. Can the abandonment of a harmful norm be facilitated by the presence of a ‘mildly harmful’ alternative that may act as a stepping stone in the medium run? Or will this become a new absorbing norm? We propose a dynamic, game-theoretic model to analyze this question, focusing on interim dynamics. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for a stepping stone transition, which involve as key parameters the social penalty factors and the difference in intrinsic utilities of the various actions. We explore the implications of the model using original data on female genital cutting in Somalia, where a transition is underway from an extremely invasive to a milder form of cutting. The framework is general and can be applied to other examples, both contemporary and historical, including footbinding, dueling, child marriage and smoking. Our analysis underlines the importance of considering intermediate alternatives when formulating policies against harmful norms.
Keywords: social norms; norm dynamics; female genital cutting; female genital mutilation; FGC; FGM
JEL Codes: C73; O12; Z10
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| mildly harmful alternative norm (sunna) (I12) | more harmful norm (pharaonic circumcision) (Y50) |
| more harmful norm (pharaonic circumcision) (Y50) | less harmful equilibrium (uncut) (D50) |
| lower perceived sanctions for deviating from sunna (P37) | higher likelihood of transitioning to uncut (C34) |
| heterogeneity among agents (D29) | facilitate transition to high-welfare norm (uncut) (P39) |
| introduction of intermediate norm (sunna) (Y20) | increase in welfare (I38) |
| intermediate norm (sunna) (Y20) | slow down transition to more desirable norm (uncut) (D15) |