Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/318544 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
Discussion Papers of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods No. 2025/6
Publisher: 
Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn
Abstract: 
Why do people obey the law when it is not formally enforced? In this study, we explore the expressive power of democracy as a behavioral channel of compliance with the law. Using a modified version of the stealing game, we examine the effect of two distinct democratic interventions on stealing under normative ambiguity: a voting procedure in which the outcome is revealed, and a voting procedure in which the outcome of the vote remains unknown. We find that revealing the outcome of a vote significantly reduces stealing relative to a baseline treatment without a vote and the treatment in which the outcome of the vote remains unknown. We also observe suggestive evidence that participants who support the social norm proscribing theft are more likely to steal nonetheless when the outcome remains unknown. Our findings have important implications for the design of expressive law and of democratic voting procedures.
JEL: 
C91
D72
D91
K14
K42
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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