The great illusion

ignorance, informational cascades, and the persistence of unpopular norms

Cristina Bicchieri

Yoshitaka Fukui

pp. 89-121

in: Maria C. Galavotti, Alessandro Pagnini (eds), Experience, reality, and scientific explanation, Berlin, Springer, 1999

Abstract

Norms of discrimination against women and blacks, norms ofrevenge still alive in some Mediterranean countries, and norms that everybody dislikes and tries to circumvent, such as the invisible norms ofreciprocity that hold among the Iks studied by Turnbull, are all examples of unpopular and inefficient norms that often persist in spite of their being disliked as well as being obviously inefficient from a social or economic viewpoint. The world of business is not immune to this problem. In all those countries in which corruption is endemic, bribing public officials to get lucrative contracts is the norm, but it is often true that such norm is disliked by many, and that it may lead to highly inefficient social outcomes (Bicchieri and Rovelli, 1995).