[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uct/uconnp/2003-05.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Words that Kill? Economic Perspectives on Hate Speech and Hate Crimes

Author

Listed:
  • Dhammika Dharmapala

    (University of Connecticut)

  • Richard H. McAdams

    (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

Abstract
This paper analyzes the conditions under which the level of hate speech (expressing hostility towards racial and other minorities) in society can influence whether individuals commit hate crimes against minorities. More generally, we explore the conditions under which speech can influence behavior by revealing social attitudes. We propose a model in which potential offenders care not only about the intrinsic benefits from the crime and the expected costs of punishment, but also about the esteem conferred by like-minded individuals. The number of such individuals is uncertain, but can (in certain circumstances) be inferred from the level of hate speech. We assume that individuals trade off their expressive utility from voicing their true opinions against the costs imposed by formal and/or informal sanctions on hate speech. We characterize the separating and pooling equilibria of this asymmetric information game, and show that the costs of engaging in speech affect what views are expressed in equilibrium. Then, we specify a set of conditions where individuals have common prior beliefs, engage in Bayesian inference, and are risk-neutral in esteem under which speech is neutral, i.e. has no effect on behavior. Then, we relax these assumptions, taking into account the relevant psychological evidence, and derive the impact of hate speech on hate crime using a variety of different formulations. We conclude that those assumptions that appear to have the strongest empirical support (the correspondence bias in inference and the concavity of utility in esteem) imply that raising the costs of engaging in hate speech will deter hate crime.

Suggested Citation

  • Dhammika Dharmapala & Richard H. McAdams, 2003. "Words that Kill? Economic Perspectives on Hate Speech and Hate Crimes," Working papers 2003-05, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:uct:uconnp:2003-05
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://media.economics.uconn.edu/working/2003-05.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 1-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Block, Michael K & Gerety, Vernon E, 1995. "Some Experimental Evidence on Differences between Student and Prisoner Reactions to Monetary Penalties and Risk," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(1), pages 123-138, January.
    3. Cowen, Tyler, 2002. "The Esteem Theory of Norms," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 113(1-2), pages 211-224, October.
    4. Stephen Morris, 2001. "Political Correctness," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(2), pages 231-265, April.
    5. Rasmusen, Eric, 1998. "The Economics of Desecration: Flag Burning and Related Activities," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(2), pages 245-269, June.
    6. Polinsky, Mitchell & Shavell, Steven, 1979. "The Optimal Tradeoff between the Probability and Magnitude of Fines," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(5), pages 880-891, December.
    7. Loury, G., 1993. "Self-Censorship in Public Discourse: A Theory of 'Political Correctness' and Related Phenomena," Papers 23, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    8. Neilson, William S. & Winter, Harold, 1997. "On criminals' risk attitudes," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 97-102, August.
    9. Brennan, Geoffrey & Pettit, Philip, 2000. "The hidden economy of esteem," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(1), pages 77-98, April.
    10. Rothschild, Michael & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1970. "Increasing risk: I. A definition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 225-243, September.
    11. Glenn C. Loury, 1994. "Self-Censorship in Public Discourse," Rationality and Society, , vol. 6(4), pages 428-461, 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. Dhammika Dharmapala & Richard H. McAdams, 2005. "Words That Kill? An Economic Model of the Influence of Speech on Behavior (with Particular Reference to Hate Speech)," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 93-136, January.
    2. Avner Bar-Ilan & Bruce Sacerdote, 2001. "The Response to Fines and Probability of Detection in a Series of Experiments," NBER Working Papers 8638, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Nuno Garoupa, 1998. "Crime and punishment: Further results," Economics Working Papers 344, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    4. Langlais, Eric, 2006. "Criminals and risk attitude," MPRA Paper 1149, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Sep 2006.
    5. Chiu, W.Henry & Madden, Paul, 2007. "Crime, punishment, and background risks," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 62(4), pages 543-555, April.
    6. Dhami, Sanjit & al-Nowaihi, Ali, 2013. "An extension of the Becker proposition to non-expected utility theory," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 10-20.
    7. Eric Langlais, 2008. "Detection Avoidance and Deterrence: Some Paradoxical Arithmetic," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 10(3), pages 371-382, June.
    8. Bruno Deffains & Claude Fluet, 2020. "Social Norms and Legal Design," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 36(1), pages 139-169.
    9. David Bruner, 2009. "Changing the probability versus changing the reward," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 12(4), pages 367-385, December.
    10. Éric Langlais, 2010. "Les criminels aiment-ils le risque ?," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 61(2), pages 263-280.
    11. J. Atsu Amegashie, 2006. "A psychological game with interdependent preference types," Levine's Bibliography 321307000000000511, UCLA Department of Economics.
    12. Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Frederick Wandschneider, 2013. "Anti-trust and the ‘Beckerian Proposition’: the Effects of Investigation and Fines on Cartels," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2013-09, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    13. J. Atsu Amegashie, 2006. "A Psychological Game with Interdependent Preference Types," CESifo Working Paper Series 1824, CESifo.
    14. Menegatti, Mario, 2023. "Variability in punishment, risk preferences and crime deterrence," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    15. Menusch Khadjavi, 2018. "Deterrence works for criminals," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 46(1), pages 165-178, August.
    16. Jan Eeckhout & Nicola Persico & Petra E. Todd, 2010. "A Theory of Optimal Random Crackdowns," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 1104-1135, June.
    17. Jan Boone & Peter Fredriksson & Bertil Holmlund & Jan C. van Ours, 2007. "Optimal Unemployment Insurance with Monitoring and Sanctions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(518), pages 399-421, March.
    18. Lisa R. Anderson & Sarah L. Stafford, 2006. "Does Crime Pay? A Classroom Demonstration of Monitoring and Enforcement," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 72(4), pages 1016-1025, April.
    19. Ezra Friedman & Abraham L. Wickelgren, 2006. "Bayesian Juries and The Limits to Deterrence," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 70-86, April.
    20. Carmen Arguedas, 2008. "To Comply or Not To Comply? Pollution Standard Setting Under Costly Monitoring and Sanctioning," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 41(2), pages 155-168, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • 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:uct:uconnp:2003-05. 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: Mark McConnel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deuctus.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.