Minority-protection laws often differ over time and across societies. We show how the dynamic interaction between strong and weak social groups may account for these differences and their evolution. We assume that interaction occurs in a democratic environment, where representative institutions...

In this paper, we study the effects of social influence on third-parties' decisions whether to engage in costly, decentralized punishment. We elicit punishment decisions both in isolation and after providing information about actual peers' punishment. We find evidence that the amount of...