Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/228376 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
CeDEx Discussion Paper Series No. 2020-12
Publisher: 
The University of Nottingham, Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics (CeDEx), Nottingham
Abstract: 
We document a sharp increase in hate crime in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum. We show that this rise was more pronounced in more pro-remain areas. These facts are consistent with a model in which individual behavior is dictated by a desire to conform to imperfectly observable social norms in addition to following individual preferences. Arguably, the referendum was a source of new information about society's overall preferences over immigration in a context where other determinants of attitudes remained constant. We exploit this feature of the referendum for identification. We build a quantitative model to examine whether the observed trends can be replicated with a sensible parameterization of the model. Our estimation of the conformity parameter allows us to quantify the role of shared narratives, national identity and stereotypes in shaping aggregate behavior.
Subjects: 
Hate crime
Brexit
attitudes towards immigrants
social norms
value of information
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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