We experimentally investigate the relationship between discriminatory behaviour and the perceived social inappropriateness of discrimination. We test the framework of Akerlof and Kranton (2000, 2005), which suggests discrimination will be stronger when social norms favour it. Our results support...

Economists are increasingly using experiments to study and measure discrimination between groups. In a meta-analysis containing 447 results from 77 studies, we find groups significantly discriminate against each other in roughly a third of cases. Discrimination varies depending upon the type of...

Understanding what motivates discrimination is of importance to economists and social scientists in general. In this paper, the authors address whether the taste to discriminate against outsiders is related to social norms. Recent studies have shown various different types of economic behaviour...

Political identity has become the strongest social divide within Western societies. This paper employs experiments to measure discrimination along multiple dimensions of social identity, and replicates previous findings showing the strongest discrimination against out-groups occurs in the...

We report two studies investigating whether, and if so how, different interventions affect voter registration rates. In a natural field experiment conducted before the 2015 UK General Election, we varied messages on a postcard sent by Oxford City Council to unregistered student voters...

Policymakers are increasingly interested these days in how they can achieve desired outcomes using 'nudges' - low-cost and non-obtrusive interventions which rely on psychological mechanisms, rather than high-powered economic incentives, to influence people's behaviour. This paper applies the...

Building on findings showing that laws exert a causal effect on social norms, this paper investigates whether this "expressive power of law" differs by gender or race. We develop a model to show that such differences are theoretically plausible. We then use an incentivized vignette experiment to...