Religious fragmentation, social identity and other-regarding preferences: Evidence from an artefactual field experiment in India

B-Tier
Journal: Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics
Year: 2019
Volume: 82
Issue: C

Authors (5)

Chakravarty, Surajeet (not in RePEc) Fonseca, Miguel A. (University of Exeter) Ghosh, Sudeep (not in RePEc) Kumar, Pradeep (not in RePEc) Marjit, Sugata (Indian Institute of Foreign Tr...)

Score contribution per author:

0.402 = (α=2.01 / 5 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We examine the impact of religious identity and village-level religious fragmentation on other-regarding preferences. We report on a series of two-player binary Dictator 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. Both Muslims’ and Hindus’ aversion to advantageous inequality declines as the probability of facing an out-group member increases. We find no evidence of aversion to disadvantageous inequality on either religious sample. Both Muslim and Hindu participants display aversion to advantageous inequality in both fragmented villages and homogeneous villages. The effect of village fragmentation on aversion to disadvantageous inequality differs across religious groups.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:soceco:v:82:y:2019:i:c:s221480431830421x
Journal Field
Experimental
Author Count
5
Added to Database
2026-01-25