The Valur of Being Nice

There is a nice posting by Tim Harford, the Undercover Economist of the Financial Times, on the economic importance of being nice. I quote one paragraph:

It is not clear how a government might encourage people to be nicer, but one famous economic study does suggest a way: Ray Fisman and Ted Miguel looked at the behaviour of diplomats in New York. The Scandinavians committed 12 unpaid parking violations between them; diplomats from Chad and Bangladesh notched up over 2,500. But when the city was given more power to punish offenders, all the diplomats cleaned up their act – niceness is best supported by legal incentives.

I suspect that niceness can be usefully supported by media campaigns, as was done in New York to make The Big Apple friendlier to tourists. On the other hand, the economic cost of people not obeying traffic laws is so obvious and large that legal regulation is imposed in most efficient large cities.