Congrats, Ashani!! 👏🏼👏🏼

Thank you Laurence for sharing our working paper & for your kind words!!

(12/12) These experiences underscore how critical it is to study violence & the justice system's response. If U'd like to know more details of our #NBER @nber.org WP 34345, please access via the links👇🏼👇🏼 We appreciate any feedback
www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/waguu...

www.nber.org/papers/w34345

(11/12) Not able to post this thread earlier as I was assaulted & robbed by a gang & have been recovering from concussion. This's 2nd time I'v experienced #violence since moving to UK 2 yrs ago. The previous case was closed w/o charges, as the police didn't pursue further action.

(10/12) Heterogeneity analyses indicate that the #MeToo effect was primarily driven by judges who exhibited a lower propensity to grant divorces before the movement, concentrated in cases involving children, and more pronounced in regions with gender-progressive attitudes.

(9/12) We also estimate a simpler DiD specification, comparing female judges' grant rates for DV cases for female vs male plaintiffs after vs before #MeToo (and similarly for male judges). This reveals a significant increase in DV divorce petitions granted by female judges only

(8/12) Event studies reveal flat pre-trends and a jump in the year the movement occurs. To rule out alternative explanations, such as some other shock affecting female judge rulings around the same time, we estimate the impacts on grant rates for divorce petitions w/o DV.

(7/12) 1st estimates of a triple-difference design comparing female to male judges for female vs male plaintiffs after vs before #MeToo confirm conditional raw means & demonstrate female judges' grant rates for DV divorce cases increase relative to male judges following #MeToo.

(6/12) Plotting conditional average divorce grant rates separately for male and female judges reveals an uptick in divorce grants for female judges just after #MeToo, but no impact for male judges.

(5/12) We use a series of event studies and difference-in-differences (DiD) designs to estimate whether the #MeToo social movement changed judges' views such that they were more likely to grant divorces to female petitioners suffering from domestic violence.

(4/12) To carry out our analysis, we collected all publicly available divorce cases seen by judges in China from 2017-2019, before and after #MeToo in China. Using natural language processing, we extract key characteristics of the cases from publicly posted written descriptions.

(3/12) The #MeToo movement in China spurred a national awareness of the prevalence and costs of gender-based violence and harassment. This movement was sudden and unexpected, and was particularly salient for women across China.

(2/12) In China, only 37% of divorce petitions citing domestic violence (DV) are granted, with evidence suggesting judges often prioritize preserving marriages even in cases of abuse. We investigate whether judicial rulings in DV cases are malleable by #MeToo social movement.

FYI: These chapters have been published as the @nber.org Working Papers and accessible via www.nber.org/papers?facet...