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University of Michigan School of Information

SBEE Seminar Series: Ro’ee Levy

“SBEE Seminar Series. Guest speakers on topics of social, behavioral and experimental economics. Co-sponsored by the School of Information, the Ross School of Business and the LSA Economics Dept.” Headshot of Ro’ee Levy. “The Effects of Social Movements: Evidence from #MeToo. Ro’ee Levy. Tel Aviv University, Israel. Monday, January 10. 11:30 a.m. - 12:45 p.m. Online via Zoom.” Block M. “School of Information.”
Location: Online
Monday, Jan 10, 2022 11:30 a.m. - 12:45 p.m.

The Effects of Social Movements: Evidence from #MeToo 

Abstract: 

Social movements are associated with many large societal changes, but evidence of their causal effects is limited. Levy and co-authors study the effect of the MeToo movement on an important personal decision — reporting a sex crime to the police. They construct a new quarterly dataset of crimes reported in 31 OECD countries and analyze the effect of the MeToo movement by employing a triple-difference strategy over time, across countries with strong and weak MeToo movements, and between crime types. The movement increased reporting of sex crimes by 10% during its first six months. The effect persists until the end of their data, more than a year after the movement started. Using more detailed US data, they show that the MeToo movement not only increased reporting, but also increased arrests for sexual assaults. In contrast to a common criticism of the movement, they do not find evidence for large differences in the effect across racial and socioeconomic groups. Based on additional survey and crime data, they show that the increased reporting reflects a higher propensity to report sex crimes, and not an increase in the incidence of sex crimes. The mechanism most consistent with their results is that victims were more motivated to report sex crimes because individuals perceived sexual misconduct to be a more serious problem following the MeToo movement. Their results demonstrate that social movements can rapidly and persistently change high-stakes personal decisions.

Speaker bio:

Headshot of Ro'ee Levy, taken outside among foliage on a sunny day.

Ro'ee Levy is a lecturer (assistant professor) at the Tel Aviv University School of Economics. Before joining Tel Aviv University, he visited MIT as a post-doc and received his PhD from Yale University. His research focuses on political economy and social media. He is especially interested in studying the forces that shape social norms, political attitudes and policy preferences, and their subsequent influence on individual behavior. 

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