The effects of community characteristics on community social behavior

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of a community's economi c characteristics on its ability to generate adherence to socially efficien t norms. These norms prescribe a behavior for an individual when his/her pr eferred behavior imposes a negative externality on others. This paper explo res social noons as a mechanism of how neighborhood characteristics can aff ect individual behavior. Understanding the mechanism through which communit y characteristics affect individual behavior is important in that it enable s the development of a testable structural empirical model which is purged of the omitted variable bias arising from the potential endogeneity of the neighborhood choice. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. JE L classification; D71.