Mantilla, Cesar, Zhou, Ling, Wang, Charlotte, Yang, Donghui, Shen, Suping and Seabright, Paul (2021) Favoring your in-group can harm both them and you: Ethnicity and public goods provision in China. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, vol. 185. pp. 211-233.

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Identification Number : 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.02.016

Abstract

Do people discriminate between co-ethnics and others in cooperative interactions? In an experiment in China, we find that participants in trust games send around 15% more to partners they know to be co-ethnics than to those whose ethnicity they do not know. Re- ceivers’ behavior is determined by amounts received and not by perceived ethnicity. In line with previous literature we find that subjects contribute more to public goods in ethnically homogeneous groups than in mixed groups. We find evidence for a new explanation that is not due to different intrinsic preferences for cooperation with ingroup and outgroup members. Instead, subjects’ willingness to punish in-group members for free-riding is re- duced when out-group members are present. This leads to lower contributions and net earnings in mixed groups. Thus favoritism towards co-ethnics can hurt both those engag- ing in favoritism and those being favored.

Item Type: Article
Language: English
Date: May 2021
Refereed: Yes
JEL Classification: C93 - Field Experiments
D9 - Intertemporal Choice and Growth
H41 - Public Goods
Subjects: B- ECONOMIE ET FINANCE
Divisions: TSE-R (Toulouse)
Site: UT1
Date Deposited: 26 Mar 2021 12:35
Last Modified: 08 Jun 2023 11:35
OAI Identifier: oai:tse-fr.eu:125442
URI: https://publications.ut-capitole.fr/id/eprint/43179
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