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Free DP Download 18 February 2022 - Reducing Sexual-Orientation Discrimination

18 Feb 2022

CEPR-DP16852_free_download.pdf

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Christopher S. Carpenter

Professor of Economics, Professor of Law, Professor of Education, Professor of Medicine, Health, and Society, and Professor of Health Policy, Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University

Ralph De Haas

Director of Research European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD); Part-time Professor of Finance Ku Leuven

Mathias Dolls

Deputy Director, Center for Macroeconomics and Surveys ifo Institute

Lisa Windsteiger

Senior Research Fellow Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance

Cevat Aksoy, Christopher S. Carpenter, Ralph de Haas, Mathias Dolls, Lisa Windsteiger

We study basic information treatments regarding sexual orientation using randomized experiments in three countries with strong and widespread anti-gay attitudes: Serbia, Turkey, and Ukraine. Participants who received information about the economic costs to society of sexual-orientation discrimination were significantly more likely than those in a control group to support equal employment opportunities based on sexual orientation. Information that the World Health Organization (WHO) does not regard homosexuality as a mental illness increased social acceptance of sexual minorities, but only for those who reported trust in the WHO. Our results have important implications for policy makers aiming to expand the rights of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people worldwide.

You can now listen to a podcast where Ralph De Haas and Cevat Aksoy tell Tim Phillips about this research.