Abstract
Social categories matter to people, but it is not obvious ex ante which ones matter more. To explore this, we conduct a novel experimental market of anonymous partners based on social categories. Participants have the option of choosing or discarding a peer according to their gender, ethnicity, and religion. Our research design allows us to explore whether individuals prioritize social categories when selecting a peer and whether the order in which social categories are prioritized is context dependent. Considering both free and costly decisions, two economic contexts are evaluated: donations (dictator game) and investments (risk game). We find that when selecting a partner, gender appears to be the dominant social category across different conditions, with subjects exhibiting sharp preferences for being matched with a female partner. However, the partner's religion gains prominence as a requested social category when issues concerning social-group decision-making become relevant to one's own payoffs. Finally, we find that choosing social categories seems to have economic consequences both by increasing economic donations and increasing investments.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 125-145 |
Number of pages | 21 |
Journal | Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization |
Volume | 193 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 2022 |
Keywords
- Discrimination
- Donation
- Ethnicity
- Gender
- Investment
- Religion
- Social categories
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Economics and Econometrics
- Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management