Legislation and Countervailing Effects from Social Norms

Francesco Parisi and Georg von Wangenheim ()

Papers on Economics and Evolution from Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography

Abstract: Human behavior is influenced both by internal norms or values ("what people think to be just behavior") and exogenous restrictions including legal sanctions. In the paper we study the interaction between these legal and extralegal forces and highlight the possibility of a countervailing effect of norms and individual in the face of changes in the legal environment. Building on the stylized fact that people's individual values are partly static and partly subject to change overtime, we consider these social and legal forces as two main factors that contribute to the change in individual values. Legal innovation that departs from current values may lead to private enforcement norms or civil disobedience. Through private enforcement of expressive laws and through civil disobedience, individuals reveal their approbation or disapproval of laws to other individuals. This may lead to a hysteresis effect on individual values that may have a reinforcing or countervailing effect on the legal innovation. Our model of countervailing norms complements the existing literature on expressive law by showing conditions under which the equilibrium behavior may move in the opposite direction from that intended by the law. Our model studies the dynamics of such problem and unveils several important predictions and practical implications for the design of law.

Keywords: Expressive law; Social Norms; Civil Disobedience; Legislation; Custom (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D70 K10 K33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2004-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-law
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:esi:evopap:2004-03

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