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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Marcel Montrey; Thomas R. Shultz |
| Abstract: | Ingroup favoritism, the tendency to favor ingroup over outgroup, is often explained as a product of intergroup conflict, or correlations between group tags and behavior. Such accounts assume that group membership is meaningful, whereas human data show that ingroup favoritism occurs even when it confers no advantage and groups are transparently arbitrary. Another possibility is that ingroup favoritism arises due to perceptual biases like outgroup homogeneity, the tendency for humans to have greater difficulty distinguishing outgroup members than ingroup ones. We present a prisoner's dilemma model, where individuals use Bayesian inference to learn how likely others are to cooperate, and then act rationally to maximize expected utility. We show that, when such individuals exhibit outgroup homogeneity bias, ingroup favoritism between arbitrary groups arises through direct reciprocity. However, this outcome may be mitigated by: (1) raising the benefits of cooperation, (2) increasing population diversity, and (3) imposing a more restrictive social structure. |
| Date: | 2019–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1908.08203&r=all |
| By: | Cemal Eren Arbatli (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Quamrul H. Ashraf (Williams College); Oded Galor (Brown University); Marc Klemp (University of Copenhagen) |
| Abstract: | This research advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that interpersonal population diversity, rather than fractionalization or polarization across ethnic groups, has been pivotal to the emergence, prevalence, recurrence, and severity of intrasocietal conflicts. Exploiting an exogenous source of variations in population diversity across nations and ethnic groups, as determined predominantly during the exodus of humans from Africa tens of thousands of years ago, the study demonstrates that population diversity, and its impact on the degree of diversity within ethnic groups, has contributed significantly to the risk and intensity of historical and contemporary civil conflicts. The findings arguably reflect the contribution of population diversity to the non-cohesivnesss of society, as reflected partly in the prevalence of mistrust, the divergence in preferences for public goods and redistributive policies, and the degree of fractionalization and polarization across ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups. |
| Keywords: | Social conflict, population diversity, ethnic fractionalization, ethnic polarization, interpersonal trust, political preferences |
| JEL: | D74 N30 N40 O11 O43 Z13 |
| Date: | 2019–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wil:wileco:2019-10&r=all |
| By: | Sandro Ambuehl; B. Douglas Bernheim; Axel Ockenfels |
| Abstract: | We study experimentally when, why, and how people intervene in others' choices. Choice Architects (CAs) construct opportunity sets containing bundles of time-indexed payments for Choosers. CAs frequently prevent impatient choices despite opportunities to provide advice, believing Choosers benefit. We consider several hypotheses concerning CAs' motives. A conventional behavioral welfarist acts as a correctly informed social planner; a mistakes-projective paternalist removes options she wishes she could reject when choosing for herself; an ideals-projective paternalist seeks to align others' choices with her own aspirations. Ideals-projective paternalism provides the best explanation for interventions in the laboratory and rationalizes support for actual paternalistic policies. |
| JEL: | P43 P48 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26119&r=all |