Non-confrontational extremists

Daniel L. Chen; Moti Michaeli; Daniel Spiro

doi:10.1016/j.euroecorev.2023.104521

Non-confrontational extremists

Daniel L. Chen, Moti Michaeli, Daniel Spiro

Department of Economics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

In many contexts individuals are subject to norms and decisions they disagree with ideologically. What is the effect of regularly being in an ideological minority on the propensity to confront majority norms and decisions? We study this in an ideologically-salient field setting – US appeals courts – using exogenous predictors of ideology and random assignment of judges. We find that ideological interaction silences extremists: Judges who are ideologically extreme relative to their peers are less confrontational – dissent less often – than other judges, despite shaping case outcomes the least. Considering many mechanisms, we find that a model of peer pressure where agents perceive concave ideological costs can explain the observations.

Original language	English
Article number	104521
Journal	European Economic Review
Volume	157
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2023.104521
State	Published - Aug 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We are grateful for comments from Zhijun Chen, Gabrielle Gratton, Bård Harstad, Zvika Neeman, Fabrizio Panebianco, seminar participants at Cattolica Milan, Monash, UCSD, UNSW and the SAET conference and two anonymous reviewers. The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from Handelsbanken Research Foundations grant number P18-0142 . Work on this project is conducted while Daniel Chen receives financial support from the European Research Council (Grant No. 614708 ), Swiss National Science Foundation (Grant Nos. 100018-152678 and 106014-150820 ), and Agence Nationale de la Recherche, France .

Funding Information:
We are grateful for comments from Zhijun Chen, Gabrielle Gratton, Bård Harstad, Zvika Neeman, Fabrizio Panebianco, seminar participants at Cattolica Milan, Monash, UCSD, UNSW and the SAET conference and two anonymous reviewers. The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from Handelsbanken Research Foundations grant number P18-0142. Work on this project is conducted while Daniel Chen receives financial support from the European Research Council (Grant No. 614708), Swiss National Science Foundation (Grant Nos. 100018-152678 and 106014-150820), and Agence Nationale de la Recherche, France.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Elsevier B.V.

Keywords

Group decision making
Ideology
Judicial decision making
Peer pressure

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Finance
Economics and Econometrics

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10.1016/j.euroecorev.2023.104521

Cite this

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abstract = "In many contexts individuals are subject to norms and decisions they disagree with ideologically. What is the effect of regularly being in an ideological minority on the propensity to confront majority norms and decisions? We study this in an ideologically-salient field setting – US appeals courts – using exogenous predictors of ideology and random assignment of judges. We find that ideological interaction silences extremists: Judges who are ideologically extreme relative to their peers are less confrontational – dissent less often – than other judges, despite shaping case outcomes the least. Considering many mechanisms, we find that a model of peer pressure where agents perceive concave ideological costs can explain the observations.",

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Non-confrontational extremists

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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