The Moderating Effects of Social Norms on Pre-merger Overspending

Results from a Survey Experiment

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6404337
AutoresJostein Askim (0000-0002-5675-6937, University of Oslo), Kurt Houlberg (0000-0003-2127-6957, VIVE - The Danish Center for Social Science Research, autor de correspondencia)
Año2023
Volumen59
Número5
Páginas1295-1320
Fecha de publicación2023-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaUrban Affairs Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1078-0874 • E-ISSN: 1552-8332
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/10780874221090873
OpenAlexW4281723110
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas42

The proposition that amalgamation reforms lead to a common-pool problem is strongly supported; governments are incentivized to overspend before the merger is implemented. However, existing literature helps little in understanding why some governments do not overspend in the pre-merger period, and why hoarders do not overspend more than they do. One explanation hitherto overlooked is the moderating effect of social norms. Two hypotheses regarding the importance of social norms are tested with data from a survey experiment conducted on over 3,000 Norwegian local elected officials. The analysis supports both: Support for hoarding is lower when hoarding is debt-financed than when financed by savings. Support for hoarding is also lower when others in the amalgamation are anticipated not to hoard than when they are. That pre-merger hoarding varies with different levels of social obligations vis-à-vis the amalgamation has implications for common-pool theory and for reformers of the structure of government

Business · Debt · Divestment · Economics · Government (linguistics · Hoarding (animal behavior · Macroeconomics · Norwegian · Political science · Proposition · Public economics · Survey data collection · Economic Policies and Impacts · Financial Literacy, Pension, Retirement Analysis · Taxation and Compliance Studies · Finance