Opinion expressions under social sanctions

Mehmet Bac

International Review of Law and Economics, 2014, vol. 38, issue C, 58-71

Abstract: I study a social debate where individuals are subject to informal sanctions if their expressions or silence signal the opinions of a minority group. Individual preferences are peaked at the expression of true opinions and there is a loss of utility from keeping silent. The model generates predictions about how equilibrium expressions change as a function of model primitives such as sanction intensity, disutility of silence and size of the minority group. A dynamic extension sheds light on the limit distribution of opinions if unvoiced opinions gradually disappear while publicly expressed opinions gain new adherents over time.

Keywords: Opinion expression; Social sanctions; Norms; Bayesian equilibrium (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D78 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:irlaec:v:38:y:2014:i:c:p:58-71

DOI: 10.1016/j.irle.2014.03.002

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