IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/clg/wpaper/2009-07.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Social Inference and Occupational Choice: Type-Based Biases in a Bayesian Model of Class Formation

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Oxoby

    (University of Calgary)

Abstract

Beliefs are a key motivator of individual behavior. As such, an understanding of how individuals' beliefs develop is a prerequisite to understanding decision-making and behavior. While rational choice theory posits a Bayesian model framework for belief formation, sta- tus construction theories argue that beliefs are strongly in uenced by status typi cations. In this paper, we develop a Bayesian model of belief formation in which individuals use irrelevant information on others' observable type to bias their beliefs. This model is used to analyze a simple occupational choice setting, thereby shedding light on the micro-macro inter-relationship between observable type (e.g. race, gender) and social class.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Oxoby, "undated". "Social Inference and Occupational Choice: Type-Based Biases in a Bayesian Model of Class Formation," Working Papers 2009-07, Department of Economics, University of Calgary, revised 11 Jan 2009.
    • Handle: RePEc:clg:wpaper:2009-07
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econ.ucalgary.ca/sites/econ.ucalgary.ca.manageprofile/files/unitis/publications/162-34168/Oxoby.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher Avery & Susan Athey & Peter Zemsky, 2000. "Mentoring and Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 765-786, September.
    2. Thomas Piketty, 1995. "Social Mobility and Redistributive Politics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 551-584.
    3. Kalai, Ehud & Lehrer, Ehud, 1993. "Rational Learning Leads to Nash Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(5), pages 1019-1045, September.
    4. Richard Breen, 1999. "Beliefs, Rational Choice And Bayesian Learning," Rationality and Society, , vol. 11(4), pages 463-479, November.
    5. Basu, Kaushik, 1989. "A Theory of Association: Social Status, Prices and Markets," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 41(4), pages 653-671, October.
    6. Jordan, J. S., 1991. "Bayesian learning in normal form games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 60-81, February.
    7. Cox, James C. & Shachat, Jason & Walker, Mark, 2001. "An Experiment to Evaluate Bayesian Learning of Nash Equilibrium Play," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 11-33, January.
    8. Chinhui Juhn & Kevin M. Murphy & Robert H. Topel, 1991. "Why Has the Natural Rate of Unemployment Increased over Time?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 22(2), pages 75-142.
    9. Fershtman, Chaim & Weiss, Yoram, 1993. "Social Status, Culture and Economic Performance," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(419), pages 946-959, July.
    10. Phelps, Edmund S, 1972. "The Statistical Theory of Racism and Sexism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(4), pages 659-661, September.
    11. Lundberg, Shelly J & Startz, Richard, 1983. "Private Discrimination and Social Intervention in Competitive Labor Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(3), pages 340-347, June.
    12. Kim-Sau Chung, 2000. "Role Models and Arguments for Affirmative Action," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 640-648, June.
    13. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 1992. "A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change in Informational Cascades," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 992-1026, October.
    14. Abhijit V. Banerjee, 1992. "A Simple Model of Herd Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 797-817.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Oxoby, Robert J., 2014. "Social inference and occupational choice: Type-based beliefs in a Bayesian model of class formation," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 30-37.
    2. Pooya Molavi & Ceyhun Eksin & Alejandro Ribeiro & Ali Jadbabaie, 2016. "Learning to Coordinate in Social Networks," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 64(3), pages 605-621, June.
    3. Oxoby, Robert J., 2008. "Skill uncertainty and social inference," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 400-405, June.
    4. Rhode, Paul & Stegeman, Mark, 2001. "Non-Nash equilibria of Darwinian dynamics with applications to duopoly," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 19(3-4), pages 415-453, March.
    5. Daniel Fershtman & Alessandro Pavan, 2021. ""Soft" Affirmative Action and Minority Recruitment," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 1-18, March.
    6. Philippe Jehiel, 2022. "Analogy-Based Expectation Equilibrium and Related Concepts:Theory, Applications, and Beyond," Working Papers halshs-03735680, HAL.
    7. Dickinson, David L. & Masclet, David & Peterle, Emmanuel, 2018. "Discrimination as favoritism: The private benefits and social costs of in-group favoritism in an experimental labor market," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 220-236.
    8. Dekel, Eddie & Fudenberg, Drew & Levine, David K., 2004. "Learning to play Bayesian games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 282-303, February.
    9. Filippin, Antonio, 2003. "Discrimination and Workers' Expectations: Experimental Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 824, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Macault, Emilien & Scarsini, Marco & Tomala, Tristan, 2022. "Social learning in nonatomic routing games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 221-233.
    11. Sobel, Joel, 2000. "Economists' Models of Learning," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 241-261, October.
    12. Francisco J. Buera & Alexander Monge‐Naranjo & Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2011. "Learning the Wealth of Nations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(1), pages 1-45, January.
    13. Jehiel, Philippe & Leduc, Mathieu V., 2024. "Can affirmative action policies be inefficiently persistent?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    14. Aoyagi, Masaki, 1998. "Mutual Observability and the Convergence of Actions in a Multi-Person Two-Armed Bandit Model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 405-424, October.
    15. Kaushik Basu, 2016. "Beyond the Invisible Hand: Groundwork for a New Economics," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9299.
    16. Jed DeVaro & Suman Ghosh & Cindy Zoghi, 2018. "Job Characteristics and Labor Market Discrimination in Promotions," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(3), pages 389-434, July.
    17. Conde-Ruiz, J. Ignacio & Ganuza, Juan José & Profeta, Paola, 2022. "Statistical discrimination and committees," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    18. Dominic Rohner & Mathias Thoenig & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2013. "War Signals: A Theory of Trade, Trust, and Conflict," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(3), pages 1114-1147.
    19. Rubin, Jared, 2014. "Centralized institutions and cascades," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 340-357.
    20. Gale, Douglas & Rosenthal, Robert W., 1999. "Experimentation, Imitation, and Stochastic Stability," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 1-40, January.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • J70 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:clg:wpaper:2009-07. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Department of Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/declgca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.