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Do Minorities Misrepresent Their Ethnicity to Avoid Discrimination?

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  • Nikoloz Kudashvili
  • Philipp Lergetporer

Abstract

Discrimination against minorities is pervasive in many societies, but little is known about strategies minorities may apply to minimize discrimination. In our trust game with 758 highschool students in the country of Georgia, ethnic Georgian trustors discriminate against the ethnic Armenian minority group. We introduce an initial signaling stage to investigate Armenians’ willingness to hide their ethnicity to avoid expected discrimination. 43 percent of Armenian trustees untruthfully signal that they have a Georgian name. Signaling behavior is driven by expected transfers and non-pecuniary motives. This strategic misrepresentation of ethnicity increases Georgian trustors’ expected back transfers and eliminates their discriminatory behavior.

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  • Nikoloz Kudashvili & Philipp Lergetporer, 2019. "Do Minorities Misrepresent Their Ethnicity to Avoid Discrimination?," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp644, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    • Handle: RePEc:cer:papers:wp644
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    Cited by:

    1. Darya Korlyakova, 2022. "Do Pessimistic Expectations About Discrimination Make Minorities Withdraw Their Effort? Causal Evidence," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp731, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    discrimination; trust game; experiment; signaling; adolescents;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • D90 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - General

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