Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/222257 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Citation: 
[Journal:] Journal of Experimental Political Science [ISSN:] 2052-2649 [Volume:] 7 [Issue:] 1 [Publisher:] Cambridge University Press [Place:] Cambridge [Year:] 2020 [Pages:] 27-40
Publisher: 
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Abstract: 
What undermines cooperation in ethnically diverse communities? Scholars have focused on factors that explain the lack of inter-ethnic cooperation, such as prejudice or the difficulty to communicate and sanction across group boundaries. We direct attention to the fact that diverse communities are also often poor and ask whether poverty, rather than diversity, reduces cooperation. We developed a strategic cooperation game where we vary the income and racial identity of the interaction partner. We find that beliefs about how poor people behave have clear detrimental effects on cooperation: cooperation is lower when people are paired with low-income partners, and the effect is particularly strong when low-income people interact among themselves. We observe additional discrimination along racial lines when the interaction partner is poor. These findings imply that poverty and rising inequality may be a serious threat to social cohesion, especially under conditions of high socioeconomic segregation.
Subjects: 
cooperation
poverty
ethnic diversity
cooperative investment game
discrimination
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

Files in This Item:





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.