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CULTURAL IDENTITIES AND RESOLUTION OF SOCIAL DILEMMAS
Author(s) -
Cox James C.,
Sadiraj Vjollca,
Sen Urmimala
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
economic inquiry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.823
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1465-7295
pISSN - 0095-2583
DOI - 10.1111/ecin.12727
Subject(s) - caste , social identity theory , reciprocity (cultural anthropology) , salient , social group , appropriation , sociology , stochastic game , social psychology , economics , political science , psychology , microeconomics , epistemology , philosophy , law
We report an experiment on payoff‐equivalent, sequential provision and appropriation games with high‐ and low‐caste Indian villagers. A central question is whether caste identities affect resolution of social dilemmas. Making caste salient elicits striking changes in behavior compared to baseline treatment with no information about others' castes. Homogenous groups with high caste villagers are more successful in resolving social dilemmas than homogenous groups with low caste villagers. The success of mixed‐caste groups is somewhere between, which is inconsistent with a group identity model. Absent salient information on caste, behavior is inconsistent with unconditional social preferences but as predicted by reciprocity. ( JEL C93, H41, Z13)