Ricerc@Sapienza

This paper aims to deepen the understanding of the role of "local norms" in explaining ecological behavior within Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior. A longitudinal investigation (overall N = 222), focused on households waste recycling, tested the hypothesis that the effects of this type of norms on behavioral intentions varies as a function of the individual's spatial proximity to the social categories relevant to the social-physical context (in this study: housemates, neighbors, inhabitants of the district or quarter, and inhabitants of the city) in which the behavior takes place.

Workplaces are important settings in which to study pro-environmental behaviour, as they are responsible for a large amount of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. For pro-environmental norms to persist, they must be transmitted from person to person in some way. The research presented here examined the influence of workplace identification on the likelihood of a pro-environmental norm being intentionally transmitted to other people within the organisation. In addition, influence of local descriptive and local injunctive norms on pro-environmental norm transmission was investigated.

In two studies, the role of nature experiences and social norms during childhood is explored next to adulthood biospheric values, connectedness to nature, environmental identity, and objective knowledge in relation to pro-environmental behaviors. Study 1 (N=185) tested the hypothesized model in the realm of general pro-environmental behaviors and sustainable fruit consumption on a sample of students. Study 2 (N=155) tested the model in the realm of sustainable seafood consumer choice on a general population sample. Path analyses show consistent results across samples.

Italy is characterised by both a low level of female participation in the labour
market and a low fertility rate. At the same time, many women stay out of the labour
market after the childbirth for a much longer period of time than the compulsory
maternity leave prescribes. This way, they put at risk the possibility of reentering
the labour market after the career break, as well as damage their future
career opportunities. In this paper we use a two-stage estimation process to analyse

We study the effects of tax morale and social norms on tax evasion when individuals interact in a network. We present a model that incorporates incentives for tax compliance in the form of punishment and fines, tax morale, and reputation for social behaviour. We assume that individuals adjust their tax morale by observing the neighbours' tax morale.

In this paper we aim to disentangle the effects on in-group favoritism driven by beliefs from those stemming from group identity, with the final goal of testing the relative power of three potential explanations of this bias: The Beliefs Driven Explanation (BDE), the Group Identity Explanation (GIE) and the Belief-mediated Group Identity Explanation (BGE). The BDE suggests that in-group favoritism is only driven by the desire not to let others’ expectations down. The GIE claims that people have a preference, per se, for members of their group.

This paper studies the effect of income inequality on tax evasion. To discuss the topic, we present a simple model, based on Benabou and Tirole [6], that incorporates incentives for tax compliance such as punishment and fines, intrinsic motivation and social norms. Since we consider a regressive system of incentives to comply, income inequality increases the value of tax evasion although overall propensity to comply is unaffected. In this framework, we consider the hypothesis that social norms are group specific as in the case of social segregation or status related networks.

Differences among nations in culture ( preferences including social norms) and institutions (contracts) may result in specialisation and gains from trade even in the absence of exogenous differences in factor endowments or technologies. Goods differ in the kinds of contracts that are appropriate for their production, and so strategic complementarities between contracts and social norms may result in a multiplicity of cultural- institutional equilibria. The resulting country differences in culture and institutions provide the basis for comparative advantage.