Religious fragmentation, social identity and rent-seeking: Evidence from an artefactual field experiment in India

Surajeet Chakravarty, Miguel Fonseca, Sudeep Ghosh and Sugata Marjit
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Surajeet Chakravarty: Department of Economics, University of Exeter
Sudeep Ghosh: Hong Kong Polytechnic University

No 1512, Discussion Papers from University of Exeter, Department of Economics

Abstract: We examine the impact of religious identity and village-level religious fragmentation on rent seeking behavior. We report on a series of two-player Tullock contest experiments conducted on a sample of 516 Hindu and Muslim participants in rural West Bengal, India. Our treatments are the identity of the two players and the degree of religious fragmentation in the village where subjects reside. We find no statistically significant differences in rent seeking behavior across different villages. We also do not find any significant differences in behavior as a function of players' identities. This is in contrast to evidence from the same sample which recorded significant differences in cooperation levels in prisoners' dilemma and stag hunt games. We attribute this to the fact that social identity may have a more powerful effect on cooperation than on confl ict.

Keywords: Social Identity; Social Fragmentation; Artefactual Field Experiment; Rent Seeking. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D03 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-dev, nep-exp and nep-soc
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:exe:wpaper:1512

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