IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v107y2017i5p76-80.html

Economic Development and the Regulation of Morally Contentious Activities

Author

Listed:
  • Julio J. Elías
  • Nicola Lacetera
  • Mario Macis
  • Paola Salardi

Abstract

The regulation of many activities depends on whether societies consider them morally controversial or "repugnant." Not only have regulation and related ethical concerns changed over time, but there is also heterogeneity across countries at a given time. We provide evidence of this heterogeneity for three morally contentious activities, abortion, prostitution, and gestational surrogacy, and explore the relationship between a country's economic conditions and how these activities are regulated. We propose a conceptual framework to identify mechanisms that can explain our findings (including the role of non-economic factors), and indicate directions for future research.

Suggested Citation

  • Julio J. Elías & Nicola Lacetera & Mario Macis & Paola Salardi, 2017. "Economic Development and the Regulation of Morally Contentious Activities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 76-80, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:107:y:2017:i:5:p:76-80
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20171098
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.p20171098
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=mlF6vaOGRUE0BCYhUBLeyKyycLAKHDux
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=4TgFvjM4q-a7vP1Gg75MrQ53aCTrKCUl
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=i9R_ASfkAENWLpnoim_rTBk1qUWDgUKi
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Della Giusta, Marina & Di Tommaso, Maria Laura & Jewell, Sarah & Bettio, Francesca, 2019. "Quashing Demand Criminalizing Clients? Evidence from the UK," IZA Discussion Papers 12405, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Davis, Lewis S. & Mavisakalyan, Astghik, 2024. "Individualism and the legal status of prostitution," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 714-732.
    3. Clarke, Damian, 2023. "The Economics of Abortion Policy," IZA Discussion Papers 16395, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Sonia Bhalotra & Damian Clarke & Joseph Flavian Gomes & Atheendar Venkataramani, 2023. "Maternal Mortality and Women’s Political Power," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 21(5), pages 2172-2208.
    5. Marina Della Giusta & Maria Laura Di Tommaso & Sarah Jewell & Francesca Bettio, 2021. "Quashing demand or changing clients? Evidence of criminalization of sex work in the United Kingdom," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 88(2), pages 527-544, October.
    6. Julio Elias & Nicola Lacetera & Mario Macis, 2017. "Understanding repugnance: Implications for public policy," CEMA Working Papers: Serie Documentos de Trabajo. 614, Universidad del CEMA.
    7. Bhalotra, Sonia R. & Clarke, Damian & Gomes, Joseph & Venkataramani, Atheendar, 2018. "Maternal Mortality and Women's Political Participation," IZA Discussion Papers 11590, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:107:y:2017:i:5:p:76-80. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.