Preference Falsification, Policy Continuity and Collective Conservatism

Timur Kuran

Economic Journal, 1987, vol. 97, issue 387, 642-65

Abstract: Through a model that distinguishes between privately-held and publicly-declared preferences, and between private and public beliefs, this paper explains why a society might c ling to its past choices. All four variables are endogenous to the mo del. Following the introduction of a measure of collective conservati sm, the paper turns to the determinants and consequences of feedback from society's choices to its members' private beliefs and preference s. The theory is applied to the persistence of India's caste system t o explain why the lowest castes have been among the system's most com mitted supporters. Copyright 1987 by Royal Economic Society.

Date: 1987
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (51)

Downloads: (external link)
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0013-0133%2819870 ... 0.CO%3B2-R&origin=bc full text (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ecj:econjl:v:97:y:1987:i:387:p:642-65

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... al.asp?ref=0013-0133

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Journal is currently edited by Martin Cripps, Steve Machin, Woulter den Haan, Andrea Galeotti, Rachel Griffith and Frederic Vermeulen

More articles in Economic Journal from Royal Economic Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing () and Christopher F. Baum ().