[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tse/wpaper/31130.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Policies Affect Preferences: Evidence from Random Variation in Abortion Jurisprudence

Author

Listed:
  • Chen, Daniel L.
  • Levonyan, Vardges
  • Yeh, Susan
Abstract
Whether policies shift preferences is relevant to policy design. We exploit the random assignment of U.S. federal judges creating geographically local precedent and the fact that judges’ politics, religion, and race predict decision-making in abortion jurisprudence. Instrumenting for abortion jurisprudence with exogenous judicial characteristics, we estimate the impact of abortion jurisprudence on state laws, campaign donations, and abortion attitudes. We verify information transmission in that pro-life abortion jurisprudence caused restrictive state laws and increased campaign donations to pro-choice causes. Pro-choice abortion decisions shifted preferences against legalized abortion in the short-run, but in the longer-run, abortion views followed court decisions. Pro-choice decisions affected Republicans while pro-life decisions affected Democrats. Counterfactual exercises suggest that had abortion cases in the last half-century been decided the opposite way, the increase in pro-life attitudes among Republicans would have been steeper and Democrats would have been more pro-choice. Our estimates complement a historical narrative that turning to the courts to vindicate rights often led to resistance and subsequent acceptance and we present a model consistent with these facts.

Suggested Citation

  • Chen, Daniel L. & Levonyan, Vardges & Yeh, Susan, 2016. "Policies Affect Preferences: Evidence from Random Variation in Abortion Jurisprudence," TSE Working Papers 16-723, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    • Handle: RePEc:tse:wpaper:31130
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2928175
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Laura Beth Nielsen & Robert L. Nelson & Ryon Lancaster, 2010. "Individual Justice or Collective Legal Mobilization? Employment Discrimination Litigation in the Post Civil Rights United States," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 7(2), pages 175-201, June.
    2. John R. Lott & John Whitley, 2007. "Abortion And Crime: Unwanted Children And Out‐Of‐Wedlock Births," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 45(2), pages 304-324, April.
    3. 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.
    4. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-00840901 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Ted Joyce, 2004. "Did Legalized Abortion Lower Crime?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(1).
    6. Bullock, John G., 2011. "Elite Influence on Public Opinion in an Informed Electorate," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(3), pages 496-515, August.
    7. Bruno Crépon & Esther Duflo & Marc Gurgand & Roland Rathelot & Philippe Zamora, 2013. "Do Labor Market Policies have Displacement Effects? Evidence from a Clustered Randomized Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(2), pages 531-580.
    8. Christina L. Boyd & Lee Epstein & Andrew D. Martin, 2010. "Untangling the Causal Effects of Sex on Judging," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(2), pages 389-411, April.
    9. Sandeep Baliga & Eran Hanany & Peter Klibanoff, 2013. "Polarization and Ambiguity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(7), pages 3071-3083, December.
    10. Stephen P. Nicholson & Thomas G. Hansford, 2014. "Partisans in Robes: Party Cues and Public Acceptance of Supreme Court Decisions," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 58(3), pages 620-636, July.
    11. A. Belloni & D. Chen & V. Chernozhukov & C. Hansen, 2012. "Sparse Models and Methods for Optimal Instruments With an Application to Eminent Domain," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(6), pages 2369-2429, November.
    12. Brian T. Fitzpatrick, 2010. "An Empirical Study of Class Action Settlements and Their Fee Awards," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 7(4), pages 811-846, December.
    13. Aldashev, Gani & Chaara, Imane & Platteau, Jean-Philippe & Wahhaj, Zaki, 2012. "Using the law to change the custom," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 182-200.
    14. Nicole Maestas & Kathleen J. Mullen & Alexander Strand, 2013. "Does Disability Insurance Receipt Discourage Work? Using Examiner Assignment to Estimate Causal Effects of SSDI Receipt," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 1797-1829, August.
    15. Alvin E. Roth, 2007. "Repugnance as a Constraint on Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 37-58, Summer.
    16. Daron Acemoglu & Matthew O. Jackson, 2017. "Social Norms and the Enforcement of Laws," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 245-295.
    17. Ashenfelter, Orley & Eisenberg, Theodore & Schwab, Stewart J, 1995. "Politics and the Judiciary: The Influence of Judicial Background on Case Outcomes," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(2), pages 257-281, June.
    18. George L. Priest & Benjamin Klein, 1984. "The Selection of Disputes for Litigation," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(1), pages 1-56, January.
    19. Hoekstra, Valerie J., 2000. "The Supreme Court and Local Public Opinion," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 94(1), pages 89-100, March.
    20. Theodore J. Joyce, 2009. "Abortion and Crime: A Review," NBER Working Papers 15098, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. John Lott & John Whitley, "undated". "Abortion and Crime: Unwanted Children and Out-of-Wedlock Births," Yale Law School John M. Olin Center for Studies in Law, Economics, and Public Policy Working Paper Series yale_lepp-1018, Yale Law School John M. Olin Center for Studies in Law, Economics, and Public Policy.
    22. Daniel L. Chen, 2010. "Club Goods and Group Identity: Evidence from Islamic Resurgence during the Indonesian Financial Crisis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(2), pages 300-354, April.
    23. Rafael Di Tella & Ernesto Schargrodsky, 2013. "Criminal Recidivism after Prison and Electronic Monitoring," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(1), pages 28-73.
    24. Galbiati, Roberto & Vertova, Pietro, 2008. "Obligations and cooperative behaviour in public good games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 146-170, September.
    25. Jonathan Gruber & Phillip Levine & Douglas Staiger, 1999. "Abortion Legalization and Child Living Circumstances: Who is the "Marginal Child"?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 263-291.
    26. Chen, Daniel L. & Michaeli, Moti & Spiro, Daniel, 2016. "Ideological Perfectionism," IAST Working Papers 16-47, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).
    27. Mireille Jacobson & Heather Royer, 2011. "Aftershocks: The Impact of Clinic Violence on Abortion Services," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 189-223, January.
    28. Franklin, Charles H. & Kosaki, Liane C., 1989. "Republican Schoolmaster: The U.S. Supreme Court, Public Opinion, and Abortion," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(3), pages 751-771, September.
    29. John J. Donohue, III & Steven D. Levitt, 2004. "Further Evidence that Legalized Abortion Lowered Crime: A Reply to Joyce," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(1).
    30. Pedro Dal Bo & Andrew Foster & Louis Putterman, 2010. "Institutions and Behavior: Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Democracy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2205-2229, December.
    31. Chen, Daniel L. & Horton, John J., 2016. "Are Online Labor Markets Spot Markets for Tasks?: A Field Experiment on the Behavioral Response to Wage Cuts," IAST Working Papers 16-37, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).
    32. N. Gregory Mankiw & Matthew Weinzierl, 2010. "The Optimal Taxation of Height: A Case Study of Utilitarian Income Redistribution," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 155-176, February.
    33. Joseph Daniel Ura, 2014. "Backlash and Legitimation: Macro Political Responses to Supreme Court Decisions," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 58(1), pages 110-126, January.
    34. Daniel L. Chen, 2015. "Can markets stimulate rights? On the alienability of legal claims," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 46(1), pages 23-65, March.
    35. Michael Klarman, "undated". "Brown and Lawrence," University of Virginia John M. Olin Program for Law & Economics Working Paper Series uvalwps-1003, University of Virginia School of Law.
    36. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/2k2jnd64aa9g19nja481vjohq3 is not listed on IDEAS
    37. Johnson, Timothy R. & Martin, Andrew D., 1998. "The Public's Conditional Response to Supreme Court Decisions," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 92(2), pages 299-309, June.
    38. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2011. "Identity, Morals, and Taboos: Beliefs as Assets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(2), pages 805-855.
    39. Elizabeth Oltmans Ananat & Jonathan Gruber & Phillip B. Levine & Douglas Staiger, 2009. "Abortion and Selection," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(1), pages 124-136, February.
    40. Waldfogel, Joel, 1995. "The Selection Hypothesis and the Relationship between Trial and Plaintiff Victory," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(2), pages 229-260, April.
    41. Anna Aizer & Joseph J. Doyle, 2015. "Juvenile Incarceration, Human Capital, and Future Crime: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Judges," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(2), pages 759-803.
    42. Magnus Carlsson & Gordon B. Dahl & Dan-Olof Rooth, 2015. "Backlash in Policy Attitudes After the Election of Extreme Political Parties," NBER Working Papers 21062, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    43. Andreas Madestam & Daniel Shoag & Stan Veuger & David Yanagizawa-Drott, 2013. "Do Political Protests Matter? Evidence from the Tea Party Movement," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(4), pages 1633-1685.
    44. Besley, Timothy & Case, Anne, 2000. "Unnatural Experiments? Estimating the Incidence of Endogenous Policies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(467), pages 672-694, November.
    45. George A. Akerlof & Janet L. Yellen & Michael L. Katz, 1996. "An Analysis of Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing in the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(2), pages 277-317.
    46. Blank, Rebecca M. & George, Christine C. & London, Rebecca A., 1996. "State abortion rates the impact of policies, providers, politics, demographics, and economic environment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 513-553, October.
    47. Sean Farhang, 2004. "Institutional Dynamics on the U.S. Court of Appeals: Minority Representation Under Panel Decision Making," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 20(2), pages 299-330, October.
    48. Thomas Barrios & Rebecca Diamond & Guido W. Imbens & Michal Kolesár, 2012. "Clustering, Spatial Correlations, and Randomization Inference," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 107(498), pages 578-591, June.
    49. Ahmed E. Taha, 2004. "Publish or Paris? Evidence of How Judges Allocate Their Time," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 6(1), pages 1-27.
    50. Thomas J. Kane & Douglas Staiger, 1996. "Teen Motherhood and Abortion Access," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(2), pages 467-506.
    51. Ted Joyce, 2009. "A Simple Test of Abortion and Crime," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(1), pages 112-123, February.
    52. Levine, Phillip B. & Trainor, Amy B. & Zimmerman, David J., 1996. "The effect of Medicaid abortion funding restrictions on abortions, pregnancies and births," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 555-578, October.
    53. Joshua B. Fischman, 2011. "Estimating Preferences of Circuit Judges: A Model of Consensus Voting," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(4), pages 781-809.
    54. Samuel Bowles & Sandra Polania-Reyes, 2012. "Economic Incentives and Social Preferences: Substitutes or Complements?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(2), pages 368-425, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Elliott Ash & Daniel L. Chen & Sergio Galletta, 2022. "Measuring Judicial Sentiment: Methods and Application to US Circuit Courts," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(354), pages 362-376, April.

    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. Chen, Daniel L. & Yeh, Susan, 2016. "How Do Rights Revolutions Occur? Free Speech and the First Amendment," TSE Working Papers 16-705, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    2. Chen, Daniel L. & Yeh, Susan, 2022. "How do rights revolutions occur? Free speech and the first amendment," TSE Working Papers 22-1396, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    3. Chen, Daniel L. & Sethi, Jasmin, 2016. "Insiders, Outsiders, and Involuntary Unemployment: Sexual Harrassment Exacerbates Gender Inequality," IAST Working Papers 16-44, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).
    4. Daniel L. Chen & Susan Yeh, 2023. "How do rights revolutions occur? Free speech and the first amendment," Working Papers hal-03921964, HAL.
    5. Chen, Daniel L. & Yeh, Susan, 2016. "Government Expropriation Increases Economic Growth and Racial Inequality: Evidence from Eminent Domain," IAST Working Papers 16-46, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).
    6. Clarke, Damian, 2023. "The Economics of Abortion Policy," IZA Discussion Papers 16395, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Chen, Daniel L. & Frankenreiter, Jens & Yeh, Susan, 2016. "Judicial Compliance in District Courts," IAST Working Papers 16-55, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).
    8. Wanchuan Lin & Juan Pantano, 2015. "The unintended: negative outcomes over the life cycle," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 28(2), pages 479-508, April.
    9. Theodore J. Joyce, 2009. "Abortion and Crime: A Review," NBER Working Papers 15098, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Chen, Daniel L. & Schonger, Martin, 2016. "Social preferences or sacred values? Theory and evidence of deontological motivations," TSE Working Papers 16-714, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Feb 2020.
    11. Sarah Miller & Laura R. Wherry & Diana Greene Foster, 2023. "The Economic Consequences of Being Denied an Abortion," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 394-437, February.
    12. Ted Joyce, 2010. "Abortion and Crime: A Review," Chapters, in: Bruce L. Benson & Paul R. Zimmerman (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Crime, chapter 18, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Chevalier, Arnaud & Marie, Olivier, 2024. "Risky moms, risky kids? fertility and crime after the fall of the wall," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 230(C).
    14. Gebhard Kirchgässner, 2011. "Econometric Estimates of Deterrence of the Death Penalty: Facts or Ideology?," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(3), pages 448-478, August.
    15. Hjalmarsson, Randi & Mitrut, Andreea & Pop-Eleches, Cristian, 2021. "The impact of abortion on crime and crime-related behavior," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    16. Todd D. Kendall & Robert Tamura, 2010. "Unmarried Fertility, Crime, and Social Stigma," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(1), pages 185-221, February.
    17. José‐Ignacio Antón & Zuleika Ferre & Patricia Triunfo, 2018. "The impact of the legalisation of abortion on birth outcomes in Uruguay," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(7), pages 1103-1119, July.
    18. Theodore J. Joyce & Ruoding Tan & Yuxiu Zhang, 2012. "Back to the Future? Abortion Before & After Roe," NBER Working Papers 18338, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. O’Flaherty, Brendan & Sethi, Rajiv, 2015. "Urban Crime," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 1519-1621, Elsevier.
    20. Edinaldo Tebaldi & Erik Alda, 2017. "Quality of Institutions and Violence Incidence: a Cross-Country Analysis," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 45(3), pages 365-384, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Backlash; Expressive Law; Abortion; Norms;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • P48 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Other Economic Systems - - - Legal Institutions; Property Rights; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Regional Studies
    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics

    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:tse:wpaper:31130. 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://edirc.repec.org/data/tsetofr.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.