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Till localism do us part: Cultural identity and the costs of separation
Author(s) -
Dalmazzo Alberto,
Blasio Guido
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
regional science policy and practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.342
H-Index - 8
ISSN - 1757-7802
DOI - 10.1111/rsp3.12239
Subject(s) - localism , secession , openness to experience , homophily , politics , preference , identity (music) , balance (ability) , political economy , political science , separation (statistics) , economics , social psychology , law , microeconomics , psychology , physics , acoustics , neuroscience , machine learning , computer science
Members of a regional community may derive disutility from interacting with individuals of other regional groups. Such a “preference for similar people”, also known as homophily, favours segregation across communities and possibly leads to political secession. In this paper, we balance the advantage of separation (which favours cultural identity in a homogeneous community) against its economic costs. Indeed, both the prominence of domestic markets when barriers to foreign exchanges are high, and the costs needed to administer a newly‐born nation can make secession very costly. We show that, when it occurs a substantial increase in openness to international exchanges—as has actually happened under the European common market—the costs of separation will fall and the bias for sameness will be likely to prevail, leading to secession.