Samuel Bowles

International Trade, Factor Mobility and the Persistence of Cultural-Institutional Diversity (2009)

Belloc, Marianna, Bowles, Samuel

Cultural and institutional differences among nations may result in differences in the ratios of marginal costs of goods in autarchy and thus be the basis of specialization and comparative advantage,...

Economic Incentives and Social Preferences: A preference-Based Lucas Critique of Public Policy (2009)

Bowles, Samuel, Reyes, Sandra Polanía

Policies and explicit incentives designed for self-regarding individuals sometimes are less effective or even counterproductive when they diminish altruism, ethical norms and other social...

WALRASIAN ECONOMICS IN RETROSPECT* (2009)

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

Two basic tenets of the Walrasian model, behavior based on self-interested exogenous preferences and complete and costless contracting have recently come under critical scrutiny. First, social norms...

Journal of Economic Perspectives—Volume 16, Number 3—Summer 2002—Pages 3–30 The Inheritance of Inequality (2008)

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

People differ markedly in their views concerning the appropriate role of government in reducing economic inequality. Self-interest and differences in values explain part of the con � ict over...

Is altruism bad for cooperation? (2008)

Hwang, Sung-Ha, Bowles, Samuel

Some philosophers and social scientists have stressed the importance for good government of an altruistic citizenry that values the well being of one another. Others have emphasized the need for...

Social Preferences and Public Economics: Mechanism design when social preferences depend on incentives (2008)

Bowles, Samuel, Hwang, Sung-Ha

Social preferences such as altruism, reciprocity, intrinsic motivation and a desire to uphold ethical norms are essential to good government, often facilitating socially desirable allocations that...

Homo reciprocans: A Research Initiative on the Origins, Dimensions, and Policy Implications of Reciprocal Fairness (2007)

Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd, Ernst Fehr, Herbert Gintis

Experimental economists and other social scientists have discovered an important form of human behavior that has been inadequately analyzed by behavioral scientists. In public goods, ultimatum, and...

The moral rights of the authors and the editors have been asserted (2007)

Series Erik, Olin Wright, John E. Roemer, Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis, Archon Fung, ...

The Real Utopias Project embraces a tension between dreams and practice. It is founded on the belief that what is pragmatically possible is not fixed independently of our imaginations, but is itself...

Incentive-Enhancing Preferences: Personality, Behavior and Earnings (2007)

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis, Melissa Osborne

Suppose there is a principal-agent relationship between employer and employee in which effort is not contractible, but is elicited through employer incentive mechanisms. We term preferences that...

Garrison America (2007)

Bowles, Samuel, Jayadev, Arjun

Samuel Bowles and Arjun Jayadev estimate that America devotes about a quarter of its labor force to conflicts over dividing up the pie rather than producing it--far more than other nations....

Garrison America (2007)

Bowles, Samuel, Jayadev, Arjun

Samuel Bowles and Arjun Jayadev estimate that America devotes about a quarter of its labor force to conflicts over dividing up the pie rather than producing it--far more than other nations....

Garrison America (2007)

Bowles, Samuel, Jayadev, Arjun

Samuel Bowles and Arjun Jayadev estimate that America devotes about a quarter of its labor force to conflicts over dividing up the pie rather than producing it--far more than other nations....

Garrison America (2007)

Bowles, Samuel, Jayadev, Arjun

Samuel Bowles and Arjun Jayadev estimate that America devotes about a quarter of its labor force to conflicts over dividing up the pie rather than producing it--far more than other nations....

Power (2007)

Bowles, Samuel, Gintis, Herbert

We consider the exercise of power in competitive markets for goods, labour and credit. We offer a definition of power and show that if contracts are incomplete it may be exercised either in...

Social Segregation and the Dynamics of Group Inequality (2006)

Bowles, Samuel, Sethi, Rajiv

We explore the dynamics of group inequality when segregation of social networks places the initially less affluent group at a disadvantage in acquiring human capital. Extending Loury (1977), we...

“Economic man” in cross-cultural perspective: Behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies (2005)

Henrich, Joseph, Boyd, Robert, Bowles, Samuel, Camerer, Colin, Fehr, Ernst, Gintis, Herbert, ...

Researchers from across the social sciences have found consistent deviations from the predictions of the canonical model of self-interest in hundreds of experiments from around the world. This...

Emulation, Inequality, and Work Hours: Was Thorsten Veblen Right? (2004)

Bowles, Samuel, Park, Yongjin

We investigate Veblen effects on work hours, namely the way that a desire to emulate the consumption standards of the rich induces longer work hours among the rest. Consistent with our model of these...

The Origins of Human Cooperation (2003)

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

Biological explanations of cooperation are based on kin altruism, reciprocal altruism, and mutualism, all of which apply to human and nonhuman species alike. But human cooperation is based in part on...

Persistent Parochialism: Trust and Exclusion in Ethnic Networks (2003)

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis, Avner Greif, Barkley Rosser, Leigh Tesfatsion, Martin Weitzman, ...

Decentralized groups such as close knit residential neighborhoods and ethnically linked businesses often achieve high levels of cooperation while also engaging in exclusionary practices that we call...

The inheritance of inequality (2002)

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis, Anders Bjorklund, Kerwin Kofi Charles, Bradford Delong, Williams Dickens, ...

People differ markedly in their views concerning the appropriate role of government in reducing economic inequality. Self-interest and differences in values explain part of the conflict over...

The inheritance of inequality (2002)

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

People differ markedly in their views concerning the appropriate role of government in reducing economic inequality. Self-interest and differences in values explain part of the conflict over...

Social capital and community governance (2002)

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

Social capital generally refers to trust, concern for ones associates, a willingness to live by the norms of one’s community and to punish those who do not. While essential to good governance,...

Social Capital and Community Governance (2002)

Samuel Bowles And, Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

Social capital generally refers to trust, concern for ones associates, a willingness to live by the norms of one's community and to punish those who do not. While essential to good governance,...

In search of Homo economicus: Behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies (2001)

Henrich, Joseph, Boyd, Robert, Bowles, Samuel, Camerer, Colin F., Fehr, Ernst, Gintis, Herbert, ...

We can summarize our results as follows. First, the canonical model is not supported in any society studied. Second, there is considerably more behavioral variability across groups than had been...

In search of Homo economicus: Behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies (2001)

Henrich, Joseph, Boyd, Robert, Bowles, Samuel, Camerer, Colin F., Fehr, Ernst, Gintis, Herbert, ...

We can summarize our results as follows. First, the canonical model is not supported in any society studied. Second, there is considerably more behavioral variability across groups than had been...

Schooling in capitalist America revisited. Retrieved November 20, 2004, from http://www.umass.edu/preferen/gintis/soced.pdf Callinicos (2001)

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

The project that eventually resulted in the publication of Schooling in Capitalist America (1976) began in 1968, stimulated by the then raging academic debates and social conflicts about the...

The Inheritance of Economic Status: Education, Class and Genetics (2001)

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

The perpetuation of a family’s position in the distribution of income from parents to children reflects the genetic and cultural transmission of individual traits, as well as the inheritance of...

In Search of Homo Economicus: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small-Scale Societies (2001)

Joseph Henrich, Robert Boyd, Samuel Bowles, Colin Camerer, Ernst Fehr, Herbert Gintis, ...

Recent investigations have uncovered large, consistent deviations from the predictions of the textbook representation of Homo economicus (Alvin E. Roth et al., 1991; Ernst Fehr and Simon Gächter,...

The Evolution of Strong Reciprocity (2000)

Bowles, Samuel, Gintis, Herbert

A number of outstanding puzzles in economics may be resolved by recognizing that where members of a group benefit from mutual adherence to a social norm, agents may obey the norm and punish its...

Risk Aversion, Insurance, and the Efficiency-Equality Tradeoff (2000)

Bowles, Samuel, Gintis, Herbert

Under conditions of informational asymmetry, redistributing the property rights may improve work incentives but lead to an inefficient choice of entrepreneurial risk. We present a model in which...

Walrasian Economics in Retrospect (2000)

Bowles, Samuel, Gintis, Herbert

Two basic tenets of theWalrasian model, behavior based on self-interested exogenous preferences and complete and costless contracting have recently come under critical scrutiny. First, social norms...

Wealth Inequality, Wealth Constraints and Economic Performance (1999)

Bardhan, Pranab, Bowles, Samuel, Gintis, Herbert

When asymmetry or non-verifiability of information, or non-excludability of users, makes contracts incomplete or unenforceable, and where for these and other reasons there are impediments to...

Optimal parochialism: The dynamics of trust and exclusion in networks. Working (1998)

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

Networks such as ethnic credit associations, close-knit residential neighborhoods, `old boy'networks, and ethnically linked businesses play an important role in economic life but have been...

The Evolution of Strong Reciprocity (1998)

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

Where genetically unrelated members of a group benefit from mutual adherence to a social norm, agents may obey the norm and punish its violators, even when this behavior cannot be justified in terms...

Mutual monitoring in teams: the effects of residual claimancy and reciprocity (1998)

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

Monitoring by peers in work teams, credit associations, partnerships, local commons situations, and residential neighborhoods is often an effective means of attenuating incentive problems. Most...

La Economía del Despilfarro (1989)

Bowles, Samuel, Gordon, David M., Weisskopf, Thomas E.

Traducción de: Beyond the Waste Land. A Democratic Alternative to Economic Decline

La instrucción escolar en la América capitalista : la reforma educativa y las contradicciones de la vida económica (1981)

Bowles, Samuel, Gintis, Herbert

Traducción de: Schooling in capitalist america. Educational reform and the contradictions of economic life

La instrucción escolar en la América capitalista : la reforma educativa y las contradicciones de la vida económica (1981)

Bowles, Samuel, Gintis, Herbert

Traducción de: Schooling in Capitalist America: Educational Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life

Schooling in capitalism America : Educational reform and the contradictions of economic life (1976)

Bowles, Samuel, Gintis, Herbert

Estudio sobre la forma en que el capitalismo ha influido en la educación impartida en los Estados Unidos de América. Contenido: las contradicciones de la reforma educativa liberal, educación y la...

Schooling in capitalism America : Educational reform and the contradictions of economic life / S. Bowles, H. Gintis. (1976)

Bowles, Samuel, Gintis, Herbert

Estudio sobre la forma en que el capitalismo ha influido en la educación impartida en los Estados Unidos de América. Contenido: las contradicciones de la reforma educativa liberal, educación y la...

Emulation, Inequality, and Work Hours: Was Thorsten Veblen Right?

Samuel Bowles, Yongjin Park

We investigate the manner in which a desire to emulate the rich influences individuals' allocation of time between labour and leisure, greater inequality inducing longer work hours as a result. Data...

Emulation, Inequality, and Work Hours: Was Thorsten Veblen Right?

Samuel Bowles, Yongjin Park

We investigate Veblen effects on work hours, namely the way that a desire to emulate the consumption standards of the rich induces longer work hours among the rest. Consistent with our model of these...

Guard Labor: An Essay in Honor of Pranab Bardhan

Arjun Jayadev, Samuel Bowles

For Pranab Bardhan, whose contributions to science and to society are honored in this report, power is an essential analytical tool. Its exercise (for better or worse) redirects the course of...

Guard Labor: An Essay in Honor of Pranab Bardhan

Samuel Bowles, Arjun Jayadev

We explore the exercise of power in perpetuating status quo institutions. We give empirical examples of the economic importance of power and offer a definition of this elusive term. We then...

The evolution of altruistic punishment

Boyd, Robert, Gintis, Herbert, Bowles, Samuel, Richerson, Peter J.

Both laboratory and field data suggest that people punish noncooperators even in one-shot interactions. Although such “altruistic punishment” may explain the high levels of cooperation in human...

Globalization and Redistribution: Feasible Egalitarianism in a Competitive World

Samuel Bowles

A reduction of impediments to international flows of goods, capital and professional labor is thought to raise the economic costs of programs by the nation state (and labor unions) to redistribute...

Mutual Monitoring in Teams: Theory and Experimental Evidence on the Importance of Reciprocity

Jeffery Carpenter, Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

Monitoring by peers is often an effective means of attenuating incentive problems. Most explanations of the efficacy of mutual monitoring rely either on small group size or on a version of the Folk...

The evolution of altruistic punishment

Boyd, Robert, Gintis, Herbert, Bowles, Samuel, Richerson, Peter J.

Both laboratory and field data suggest that people punish noncooperators even in one-shot interactions. Although such “altruistic punishment” may explain the high levels of cooperation in human...

Economic Man in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Behavioral Experiments in Fifteen Small-Scale Societies

Joseph Henrich, Robert Boyd, Samuel Bowles, Colin Camerer, Ernst Fehr, Herbert Gintis, ...

Experimental behavioral scientists have found consistent deviations from the predictions of the canonical model of self-interest in over a hundred experiments from around the world. Prior research...

Emulation, Inequality, and Work Hours: Was Thorsten Veblen Right?

Samuel Bowles

We investigate the importance of Veblen effects on work hours, namely the manner in which a desire to emulate the consumption standards of the rich influences individuals' allocation of time between...

The Evolution of Inequality

Samuel Bowles

Under what conditions can class divisions characterized by high levels of inequality be designated evolutionary universals, using Talcott Parsons's term to refer to social arrangements which have...

Cooperation, Reciprocity and Punishment in Fifteen Small-scale Societies

Joseph Henrich, Robert Boyd, Samuel Bowles, Colin Camerer, Ernst Fehr, Herbert Gintis, ...

Recent investigations have uncovered large, consistent deviations from the predictions of the textbook representation of Homo Economicus: in addition to their own material payoffs, many experimental...

The Inheritance of Economic Status: Education, Class, and Genetics

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

The perpetuation of a family's position in the distribution of income from parents to children reflects the genetic and cultural transmission of individual traits, as well as the inheritance of group...

Incentive-Enhancing Preferences: Personality, Behavior and Earnings

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis, Melissa Osborne

Suppose there is a principal-agent relationship between employer and employee in which effort is not contractible, but is elicited through employer incentive mechanisms. We term preferences that...

Social Capital and Community Governance

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

Social capital generally refers to trust, concern for one's associates, a willingness to live by the norms of one's community and to punish those who do not. While essential to good governance, these...

The Co-evolution of Individual Behaviors and Social Institutions

Samuel Bowles, Astrid Hopfensitz

We jointly address two puzzles, namely what accounts for the evolutionary success of both: (a) individually costly and group-beneficial forms of human sociality towards non-kin; and (b) those...

The Evolution of Reciprocal Preferences

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

A number of outstanding puzzles in economics may be resolved by recognizing that where members of a group benefit from mutual adherence to a social norm, agents may obey the norm and punish its...

Costly Signaling and Cooperation

Eric Alden Smith, Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

We propose an explanation of cooperation among unrelated members of a social group, in which providing group benefits evolves because it constitutes an honest signal of the member's quality as a...

Individual Interactions, Group Conflicts, and the Evolution of Preferences

Samuel Bowles

This paper provides a unified framework for studying the effects of economic (and other) institutions on the evolution of preferences, taking account of conformist cultural transmission, social...

Optimal Parochialism: The Dynamics of Trust and Exclusion in Networks

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

Networks such as ethnic credit associations, close-knit residential neighborhoods, "old boy' networks, and ethnically linked businesses play an important role in economic life but have been little...

Power

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

We consider the exercise of power in competitive markets for goods, labour and credit. We offer a definition of power and show that if contracts are incomplete it may be exercised either in...

Social Preferences and Public Economics: Are good laws a substitute for good citizens?

Samuel Bowles

Laws and policies designed to harness self-regarding preferences to public ends may fail when they compromise the beneficial effects of pro-social preferences. Experimental evidence indicates that...

Power

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

We consider the exercise of power in competitive markets for goods, labour and credit. We offer a definition of power and show that if contracts are incomplete it may be exercised either in...

Social Preferences and Public Economics: Are good laws a substitute for good citizens?

Samuel Bowles

Laws and policies designed to harness self-regarding preferences to public ends may fail when they compromise the beneficial effects of pro-social preferences. Experimental evidence indicates that...

Introduction to Unequal Chances: Family Background and Economic Success

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis, Melissa Osborne Groves

Is the United States "the land of equal opportunity" or is the playing field tilted in favor of those whose parents are wealthy, well educated, and white? If family background is important in getting...

Social Preferences and Public Economics: Mechanism design when social preferences depend on incentives

Samuel Bowles, Sung Ha Hwang

Social preferences such as altruism, reciprocity, intrinsic motivation and a desire to uphold ethical norms are essential to good government, often facilitating socially desirable allocations that...

Risk Aversion, Insurance, and the Efficiency-Equality Tradeoff

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

Under conditions of informational asymmetry, redistributing the property rights may improve work incentives but lead to an inefficient choice of entrepreneurial risk. We present a model in which...

Walrasian Economics in Retrospect

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

Two basic tenets of theWalrasian model, behavior based on self-interested exogenous preferences and complete and costless contracting have recently come under critical scrutiny. First, social norms...

The Evolution of Strong Reciprocity

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

A number of outstanding puzzles in economics may be resolved by recognizing that where members of a group benefit from mutual adherence to a social norm, agents may obey the norm and punish its...

Optimal Parochialism: The Dynamics of Trust and Exclusion in Networks

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

Networks such as ethnic credit associations, close-knit residential neighborhoods, 'old boy' networks, and ethnically linked businesses play an important role in economic life but have been little...

Social Segregation and the Dynamics of Group Inequality

Samuel Bowles, Rajiv Sethi

We explore the dynamics of group inequality when segregation of social networks places the initially less affluent group at a disadvantage in acquiring human capital. Extending Loury (1977), we...

The Determinants of Earnings: A Behavioral Approach

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis, Melissa Osborne

We survey the determinants of earnings and propose a framework for understanding labor market success. We suggest that the advantages of the children of successful parents go considerably beyond the...

Endogenous Preferences: The Cultural Consequences of Markets and Other Economic Institutions

Samuel Bowles

Drawing on experimental economics, anthropology, social psychology, sociology, history, the theory of cultural evolution as well as more conventional economic sources, I review models and evidence...

Social Preferences and Public Economics: Mechanism Design when Social Preferences Depend on Incentives

Samuel Bowles, Sung-Ha Hwang

Social preferences such as altruism, reciprocity, intrinsic motivation and a desire to uphold ethical norms are essential to good government, often facilitating socially desirable allocations that...

Strong reciprocity and the welfare state

Fong, Christina M., Bowles, Samuel, Gintis, Herbert, S. Kolm, Jean Mercier Ythier

We explore the contribution of reciprocity and other non selfish motives to the political viability of the modern welfare state. In the advanced economies, a substantial fraction of total income is...

Mutual Monitoring in Teams: Theory and Experimental Evidence on the Importance of Reciprocity

Jeffrey Carpenter, Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

Monitoring by peers is often an effective means of attenuating incentive problems. Most explanations of the efficacy of mutual monitoring rely either on small group size or on a version of the Folk...

Wealth inequality, wealth constraints and economic performance

Bardhan, Pranab, Bowles, Samuel, Gintis, Herbert, A.B. Atkinson, F. Bourguignon

Where such behaviors as risk-taking and hard work are not subject to complete contracts, some distributions of assets (for instance the widespread use of tenancy) may preclude efficient contractual...

Wealth Inequality, Wealth Constraints and Economic Performance

Pranab Bardhan, Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

When asymmetry or non-verifiability of information, or non-excludability of users, makes contracts incomplete or unenforceable, and where for these and other reasons there are impediments to...

Wealth Inequality, Wealth Constraints and Economic Performance

Pranab Bardhan, Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

When asymmetry or non-verifiability of information, or non- excludability of users, makes contracts incomplete or unenforceable, and where for these and other reasons there are impediments to...

Social Capital and Community Governance

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

"Community governance" is the set of small group social interactions that, with market and state, determine economic outcomes. We argue (i) community governance addresses some common market and state...

Globalization versus Redistribution? Egalitarian Policies in a Competitive World Economy

Samuel Bowles

A reduction of impediments to international flows of goods, capital and professional labor is thought to raise the economic costs of programs by the nation state (and labor unions) to redistribute...

Economic Integration, Cultural Standardization and the Politics of Social Insurance

Samuel Bowles, Ugo Pagano

We explore cultural aspects of globalization and provide a model to illuminate some possible effects of globalization on the politics of redistribution within nations. The argument of the paper is as...

Emulation, Inequality, and Work Hours: Was Thorsten Veblen Right

Samuel Bowles, Yongjin Park

We investigate the importance of Veblen effects on work hours, namely the manner in which a desire to emulate the consumption standards of the rich influences individuals’ allocation of time...

Walrasian Economics In Retrospect

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

Two basic tenets of the Walrasian model, behavior based on self-interested exogenous preferences and complete and costless contracting have recently come under critical scrutiny. First, social norms...

Employment Rents and the Incidence of Strikes.

Schor, Juliet B, Bowles, Samuel

A new measure of labor market tightness on workers' behavior--the employment rent--is modeled as a determinant of workplace conflict. An empirical estimate of the employment rent--workers' expected...

Garrison America

Samuel Bowles, Arjun Jayadev

Samuel Bowles and Arjun Jayadev estimate that America devotes about a quarter of its labor force to conflicts over dividing up the pie rather than producing it--far more than other nations....

Is altruism bad for cooperation?

Sung Ha Hwang, Samuel Bowles

Some philosophers and social scientists have stressed the importance for good government of an altruistic citizenry that values the well being of one another. Others have emphasized the need for...

Social preferences and public economics: Mechanism design when social preferences depend on incentives

Bowles, Samuel, Hwang, Sung-Ha

Social preferences such as altruism, reciprocity, intrinsic motivation and a desire to uphold ethical norms are essential to good government, often facilitating socially desirable allocations that...

The Evolution of Strong Reciprocity

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

Where genetically unrelated members of a group benefit from mutual adherence to a social norm, agents may obey the norm and punish its violators, even when this behavior cannot be justified in terms...

Mutual Monitoring in Teams: The Effects of Residual Claimancy and Reciprocity

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

Monitoring by peers in work teams, credit associations, partner- ships, local commons situations, and residential neighborhoods is often an effective means of attenuating incentive problems. Most...

Moral Sentiments and Material Interests: The Foundations of Cooperation in Economic Life

Herbert Gintis, Samuel Bowles, Robert T. Boyd, Ernst Fehr

Moral Sentiments and Material Interests presents an innovative synthesis of research in different disciplines to argue that cooperation stems not from the stereotypical selfish agent acting out of...

Reciprocity, Self-Interest and the Welfare State

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

In the advanced economies, a substantial fraction of total income is regularly transferred from the better off to the less well off, with the approval of the electorate. Economists have for the most...

Reciprocity, Self-Interest and the Welfare State

Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

In the advanced economies, a substantial fraction of total income is regularly transferred from the better off to the less well off, with the approval of the electorate. Economists have for the most...

Group Inequality

Samuel Bowles, Glenn C. Loury, Rajiv Sethi

This paper explores conditions under which inequality across social groups can emerge from initially group-egalitarian distributions and persist across generations despite equality of eco- nomic...

Economic Incentives and Social Preferences: A Preference-based Lucas Critique of Public Policy

Samuel Bowles, Sandra Polanía Reyes

Policies and explicit private incentives designed for self-regarding individuals sometimes are less effective or even counterproductive when they diminish altruism, ethical norms and other social...

International Trade, Factor Mobility and the Persistence of Cultural-Institutional Diversity

Marianna Belloc, Samuel Bowles

Cultural and institutional differences among nations may result in differences in the ratios of marginal costs of goods in autarchy and thus be the basis of specialization and comparative advantage,...

International Trade, Factor Mobility and the Persistence of Cultural-Institutional Diversity

Marianna Belloc, Samuel Bowles

Cultural and institutional differences among nations may result in differences in the ratios of marginal costs of goods in autarchy and thus be the basis of specialization and comparative advantage,...

Strong reciprocity and team production: Theory and evidence

Carpenter, Jeffrey, Bowles, Samuel, Gintis, Herbert, Hwang, Sung-Ha

Punishment of shirkers is often an effective means of attenuating incentive problems and sustaining coordination in work teams. Explanations of the motivation to punish generally rely either on small...

Garrison America

Samuel Bowles, Arjun Jayadev

Samuel Bowles and Arjun Jayadev estimate that America devotes about a quarter of its labor force to conflicts over dividing up the pie rather than producing it--far more than other nations....