Dasgupta, P. and Goyal, S.

Narrow Identities

Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics

Vol. 175 no. 3 pp. 395-419 (2019)

Abstract: A person’s social identity has many facets, involving language, personal interests, customs, religion, and ethnicity, among other attributes. Yet, all over the world many people seek to define themselves in exclusive terms. This paper develops a simple model of personal incentives and group interests to offer one possible explanation for the puzzle.

Keywords: conflict, efficiency, externalities, identity, populism

JEL Codes: D60, D70

Author links: Sanjeev Goyal Partha Dasgupta

Publisher's Link: https://doi.org/10.1628/jite-2019-0025