IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/irs/cepswp/2020-03.html

Law and Norms: Empirical Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • LANE Tom
  • NOSENZO Daniele

Abstract

A large theoretical literature argues laws exert a causal effect on norms. This paper is the first to provide a clean empirical test of the proposition. Using an incentivized vignette experiment, we directly measure social normsrelating to actions subject to legal thresholds. Results from three samples with around 800 subjects drawn from universities in the UK and China, and the UK general population, show laws often, but not always, influence norms. The strength of the effect varies across different scenarios, with some evidence that it is more powerful when lawbreaking is more likely to be intentional and accurately measurable.

Suggested Citation

  • LANE Tom & NOSENZO Daniele, 2020. "Law and Norms: Empirical Evidence," LISER Working Paper Series 2020-03, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    • Handle: RePEc:irs:cepswp:2020-03
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://liser.elsevierpure.com/fr/publications/law-and-norms-empirical-evidence
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • K00 - Law and Economics - - General - - - General (including Data Sources and Description)
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:irs:cepswp:2020-03. 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: Library and Documentation The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Library and Documentation to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cepsslu.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.