IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/14309.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do Laws Shape Attitudes? Evidence from Same-Sex Relationship Recognition Policies in Europe

Author

Listed:
  • De Haas, Ralph
  • Aksoy, Cevat Giray
  • Carpenter, Christopher S.
  • Tran, Kevin

Abstract

Understanding whether laws shape or simply reflect citizens’ attitudes is important but empirically difficult. We provide new evidence on this question by studying the relation between legal same-sex relationship recognition policies (SSRRPs) and attitudes toward sexual minorities in Europe. Using data from the European Social Surveys covering 2002-2016 and exploiting variation in the timing of SSRRPs across countries, we show that legal relationship recognition is associated with statistically significant improvements in attitudes toward sexual minorities. These effects are widespread across demographic groups but are consistently larger for more conservative groups in countries with less gender equality. Our results suggest that laws can exert a powerful influence in shaping societal attitudes.

Suggested Citation

  • De Haas, Ralph & Aksoy, Cevat Giray & Carpenter, Christopher S. & Tran, Kevin, 2020. "Do Laws Shape Attitudes? Evidence from Same-Sex Relationship Recognition Policies in Europe," CEPR Discussion Papers 14309, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:14309
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP14309
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Timothy Besley & Anne Case, 2003. "Political Institutions and Policy Choices: Evidence from the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(1), pages 7-73, March.
    2. Anjali Adukia & Sam Asher & Paul Novosad, 2020. "Educational Investment Responses to Economic Opportunity: Evidence from Indian Road Construction," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 348-376, January.
    3. Simon Freyaldenhoven & Christian Hansen & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2019. "Pre-event Trends in the Panel Event-Study Design," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(9), pages 3307-3338, September.
    4. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2008. "Bootstrap-Based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 414-427, August.
    5. Aksoy, Cevat Giray & Carpenter, Christopher S. & Frank, Jeff & Huffman, Matt L., 2019. "Gay glass ceilings: Sexual orientation and workplace authority in the UK," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 167-180.
    6. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    7. Ariella Kahn-Lang & Kevin Lang, 2020. "The Promise and Pitfalls of Differences-in-Differences: Reflections on 16 and Pregnant and Other Applications," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(3), pages 613-620, July.
    8. Benjamin G. Bishin & Thomas J. Hayes & Matthew B. Incantalupo & Charles Anthony Smith, 2016. "Opinion Backlash and Public Attitudes: Are Political Advances in Gay Rights Counterproductive?," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 60(3), pages 625-648, July.
    9. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    10. Charles Kenny & Dev Patel, 2017. "Norms and Reform: Legalizing Homosexuality Improves Attitudes," Working Papers 465, Center for Global Development.
    11. Robert Andersen & Tina Fetner, 2008. "Economic Inequality and Intolerance: Attitudes toward Homosexuality in 35 Democracies," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(4), pages 942-958, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sansone, Dario, 2019. "Pink work: Same-sex marriage, employment and discrimination," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    2. Damian Clarke & Kathya Tapia-Schythe, 2021. "Implementing the panel event study," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 21(4), pages 853-884, December.
    3. Roth, Jonathan & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Bilinski, Alyssa & Poe, John, 2023. "What’s trending in difference-in-differences? A synthesis of the recent econometrics literature," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 2218-2244.
    4. Fink, Alexander, 2012. "The effects of party campaign spending under proportional representation: Evidence from Germany," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 574-592.
    5. Hoffman, Mitchell & León, Gianmarco & Lombardi, María, 2017. "Compulsory voting, turnout, and government spending: Evidence from Austria," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 103-115.
    6. Jan Fałkowski & Alessandro Olper, 2014. "Political competition and policy choices: the evidence from agricultural protection," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 45(2), pages 143-158, March.
    7. Carpenter, Christopher S. & Sansone, Dario, 2021. "Cigarette taxes and smoking among sexual minority adults," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    8. Ash, Elliott & MacLeod, W. Bentley, 2021. "Reducing partisanship in judicial elections can improve judge quality: Evidence from U.S. state supreme courts," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    9. Thomas S. Dee & Brian A. Jacob, 2012. "Rational Ignorance in Education: A Field Experiment in Student Plagiarism," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 47(2), pages 397-434.
    10. Alexander Whalley, 2013. "Elected versus Appointed Policy Makers: Evidence from City Treasurers," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(1), pages 39-81.
    11. Cantoni, Enrico & Gazzè, Ludovica & Schafer, Jerome, 2021. "Turnout in concurrent elections: Evidence from two quasi-experiments in Italy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    12. Grönqvist, Hans & Niknami, Susan, 2014. "Alcohol availability and crime: Lessons from liberalized weekend sales restrictions," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 77-84.
    13. Anna Harvey & Taylor Mattia, 2022. "Does money have a conservative bias? Estimating the causal impact of Citizens United on state legislative preferences," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 191(3), pages 417-441, June.
    14. Adams, Camilla & Meer, Jonathan & Sloan, CarlyWill, 2022. "The minimum wage and search effort," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    15. Silva,Joana C. G. & Morgandi,Matteo & Levin,Victoria, 2016. "Trust in government and support for redistribution," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7675, The World Bank.
    16. Andrés Elberg & Pedro M. Gardete & Rosario Macera & Carlos Noton, 2019. "Dynamic effects of price promotions: field evidence, consumer search, and supply-side implications," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 1-58, March.
    17. Luis Alvarez & Bruno Ferman, 2020. "Inference in Difference-in-Differences with Few Treated Units and Spatial Correlation," Papers 2006.16997, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2023.
    18. Markus Nagler & Marc Piopiunik & Martin R. West, 2020. "Weak Markets, Strong Teachers: Recession at Career Start and Teacher Effectiveness," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(2), pages 453-500.
    19. Galletta, Sergio & Jametti, Mario, 2015. "How to tame two Leviathans? Revisiting the effect of direct democracy on local public expenditure in a federation," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 82-93.
    20. Hagemann, Andreas, 2019. "Placebo inference on treatment effects when the number of clusters is small," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 213(1), pages 190-209.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public opinion; Same-sex relationship recognition policies; Lgb attitudes;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K36 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Family and Personal Law
    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics

    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:cpr:ceprdp:14309. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.