Law and Norms: Empirical Evidence

Tom Lane (), Daniele Nosenzo and Silvia Sonderegger ()
Additional contact information
Silvia Sonderegger: School of Economics, University of Nottingham

Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University

Abstract: A large theoretical literature argues laws exert a causal effect on norms, but empirical evidence remains scant. Using a novel identification strategy, this paper provides a clean empirical test of this proposition. We use incentivized vignette experiments to directly measure social norms relating to actions subject to legal thresholds. Our large-scale experiments featured around 5,800 subjects drawn from six samples recruited in the UK and China. Results show laws often, but not always, influence norms. Our findings are robust to different methods of measuring norms, and remain qualitatively similar across samples and between two countries with very different legislative environments.

Keywords: Social Norms; Law; Expressive Function of Law (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 C92 D9 K1 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 193
Date: 2021-07-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-exp and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://repec.econ.au.dk/repec/afn/wp/21/wp21_08.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Law and Norms: Empirical Evidence (2023)
Working Paper: Law and Norms: Empirical Evidence (2020)
Working Paper: Law and Norms: Empirical Evidence (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aah:aarhec:2021-08

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