Event Information
The next EEU seminar will be held on Monday the 24th of November at 12:10 – 13:00 in B44 or in Zoom.
The seminar will be held by The seminar will be held by Ingela Alger and she will be presenting a paper on the topic of: Norms and norm change - driven by social Kantian preferences. Ingela is a senior researcher at CNRS, affiliated with the Toulouse School of Economics, and she is also a visiting professor here at University of Gothenburg.
Ingela Alger research focuses on the evolutionary foundations of human preferences—how they are transmitted across generations and shaped by selection. She focuses especially on the evolution of morality, distributional preferences, and family-related behaviors, with work published in leading journals such as AER, Econometrica, and PNAS.
When: Monday, Novemer 24th at 12:10-13:00.
Where: B44 or via Zoom.
Speaker: Ingela Alger
Title: Norms and norm change - driven by social Kantian preferences
Abstract: Norms indicate which behaviors are common and/or considered morally right. They may differ across space and time. I show that social-Kantian preferences can explain this. These preferences incorporate two hitherto neglected factors: Kantian moral concerns – which drive personal moral norms and motivate unconditional following thereof – and attitudes towards making a different material sacrifice than others –which motivate conditioning own on others’ behavior. Conditions on preference and belief distributions promoting/hampering spontaneous changes in the behavioral norm (the modal behavior) are identified. Implications for policy interventions aimed at changing norms, and key differences with commonly used models are discussed.
Hope to see you there!