IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/cesptp/hal-01316758.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Religious Homophily in a Secular Country: Evidence from a Voting Game in France

Author

Listed:
  • Claire L. Adida

    (PoliSci - UC San Diego - Department of Political Science [Univ California San Diego] - UC San Diego - University of California [San Diego] - UC - University of California)

  • David D. Laitin

    (Stanford University)

  • Marie-Anne Valfort

    (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

Homophily—the tendency individuals have to associate with similar-others—is a powerful determinant of social networks. Yet research to date does not allow us to determine which dimension, e.g., ethnic, religious, gender, age, or class similarity, drives association. Tests demonstrating homophily are flawed by restricting the range of dimensions in the choice set. We introduce an experimental game in which we exogenously expose subjects to diverse partners to determine which dimension dominates. We find that in a socio-demographically diverse district of Paris, despite expectations of secularization, religious similarity significantly predicts homophily. Moreover, we provide tentative evidence that religious homophily is taste-based.

Suggested Citation

  • Claire L. Adida & David D. Laitin & Marie-Anne Valfort, 2015. "Religious Homophily in a Secular Country: Evidence from a Voting Game in France," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-01316758, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:cesptp:hal-01316758
    DOI: 10.1111/ecin.12192
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jacquemet, Nicolas & Yannelis, Constantine, 2012. "Indiscriminate discrimination: A correspondence test for ethnic homophily in the Chicago labor market," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(6), pages 824-832.
    2. Nicolas Jacquemet & Anthony Edo, 2013. "La discrimination à l’embauche, Sur le marché du travail Français," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01324371, HAL.
    3. Benjamin Golub & Matthew O. Jackson, 2012. "How Homophily Affects the Speed of Learning and Best-Response Dynamics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(3), pages 1287-1338.
    4. Wing Suen, 2010. "Mutual Admiration Clubs," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(1), pages 123-132, January.
    5. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 991-1013, September.
    6. Gunter J. Hitsch & Ali Hortaçsu & Dan Ariely, 2010. "Matching and Sorting in Online Dating," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 130-163, March.
    7. Monks, James & Robinson, Michael, 2000. "Gender and Racial Earnings Differentials in Academic Labor Markets," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 38(4), pages 662-671, October.
    8. Arye Hillman, 2007. "Economic and security consequences of supreme values," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 259-280, June.
    9. Raquel Fernández & Richard Rogerson, 2001. "Sorting and Long-Run Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1305-1341.
    10. Claire L. Adida & David D. Laitin & Marie-Anne Valfort, 2010. "Identifying barriers to Muslim integration in France," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00618060, HAL.
    11. Sergio Currarini & Matthew O. Jackson & Paolo Pin, 2009. "An Economic Model of Friendship: Homophily, Minorities, and Segregation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(4), pages 1003-1045, July.
    12. Simon Burgess & Eleanor Sanderson & Marcela Umana-Aponte, 2011. "School ties: An analysis of homophily in an adolescent friendship network," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 11/267, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    13. Charles F. Manski, 1989. "Anatomy of the Selection Problem," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 24(3), pages 343-360.
    14. repec:hal:pseose:hal-00745109 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Berg Joyce & Dickhaut John & McCabe Kevin, 1995. "Trust, Reciprocity, and Social History," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 122-142, July.
    16. K. R. Narayanan, 1954. "Freedom in Modern Society," India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs, , vol. 10(4), pages 376-381, October.
    17. Findlay, David W & Reid, Clifford E, 1997. "Voting Behavior, Discrimination and the National Baseball Hall of Fame," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 35(3), pages 562-578, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lars Ivar Oppedal Berge & Kjetil Bjorvatn & Simon Galle & Edward Miguel & Daniel N. Posner & Bertil Tungodden & Kelly Zhang, 2015. "How Strong are Ethnic Preferences?," NBER Working Papers 21715, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Henning, Karla & Vollan, Björn & Balafoutas, Loukas, 2022. "Religious worship and discrimination," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 91-102.
    3. Valfort, Marie-Anne, 2020. "Anti-Muslim discrimination in France: Evidence from a field experiment," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    4. Rapallini, Chiara & Rustichini, Aldo, 2019. "Personality and cognitive skills in network of friends, for multi-ethnic schools," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 1-14.
    5. Chen, Josie I. & Foster, Andrew & Putterman, Louis, 2019. "Identity, trust and altruism: An experiment on preferences and microfinance lending," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    6. Lucie Coufalová & Štěpán Mikula & Michal Ševčík, 2023. "Homophily in voting behavior: Evidence from preferential voting," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 76(2), pages 281-300, May.
    7. Brian L. Goff & Michelle W. Trawick, 2017. "Preaching and politics: disentangling religiosity and political choice," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 41(3), pages 595-609, July.
    8. Kwok, Diana W.P. & Meschi, Pierre-Xavier & Bertrand, Olivier, 2020. "In CEOs we trust: When religion matters in cross-border acquisitions. The case of a multifaith country," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(4).

    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. Anthony Edo & Nicolas Jacquemet & Constantine Yannelis, 2019. "Language skills and homophilous hiring discrimination: Evidence from gender and racially differentiated applications," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 349-376, March.
    2. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo, 2016. "Field Experiments on Discrimination," NBER Working Papers 22014, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Valfort, Marie-Anne, 2020. "Anti-Muslim discrimination in France: Evidence from a field experiment," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    4. Claire Adida & David Laitin & Marie-Anne Valfort, 2014. "Muslims in France: identifying a discriminatory equilibrium," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 27(4), pages 1039-1086, October.
    5. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo, 2016. "Field Experiments on Discrimination," NBER Working Papers 22014, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Anthony Edo & Nicolas Jacquemet, 2013. "Discrimination à l'embauche selon l'origine et le genre : défiance indifférenciée ou ciblée sur certains groupes ?," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 464(1), pages 155-172.
    7. Chen, Josie I. & Foster, Andrew & Putterman, Louis, 2019. "Identity, trust and altruism: An experiment on preferences and microfinance lending," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    8. Centola, Damon & van de Rijt, Arnout, 2015. "Choosing your network: Social preferences in an online health community," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 19-31.
    9. Dan Zeltzer, 2020. "Gender Homophily in Referral Networks: Consequences for the Medicare Physician Earnings Gap," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 169-197, April.
    10. Zschirnt, Eva & Ruedin, Didier, 2016. "Ethnic discrimination in hiring decisions: A meta-analysis of correspondence tests 1990–2015," EconStor Preprints 142176, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    11. Baert, Stijn, 2017. "Hiring Discrimination: An Overview of (Almost) All Correspondence Experiments Since 2005," GLO Discussion Paper Series 61, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    12. Morten Størling Hedegaard & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2018. "The Price of Prejudice," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 40-63, January.
    13. Currarini, Sergio & Matheson, Jesse & Vega-Redondo, Fernando, 2016. "A simple model of homophily in social networks," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 18-39.
    14. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-00935241 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Önder, Ali Sina & Portmann, Marco & Stadelmann, David, 2015. "No Place like Home: Opinion Formation with Homophily and Implications for Policy Decisions," Working Paper Series, Center for Fiscal Studies 2015:4, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    16. Majid Ahmadi & Nathan Durst & Jeff Lachman & John A. List & Mason List & Noah List & Atom T. Vayalinkal, 2022. "Nothing Propinks Like Propinquity: Using Machine Learning to Estimate the Effects of Spatial Proximity in the Major League Baseball Draft," NBER Working Papers 30786, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Allouch, Nizar, 2017. "The cost of segregation in (social) networks," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 329-342.
    18. Poutvaara, Panu & Steinhardt, Max Friedrich, 2018. "Bitterness in life and attitudes towards immigration," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 471-490.
    19. Yann Algan & Clément Malgouyres & Thierry Mayer & Mathias Thoenig, 2022. "The Economic Incentives of Cultural Transmission: Spatial Evidence from Naming Patterns Across France [‘Cultural assimilation during the age of mass migration’]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(642), pages 437-470.
    20. Laetitia Challe & Yannick L'Horty & Pascale Petit & François-Charles Wolff, 2018. "Les discriminations dans l'accès à l'emploi privé et public : les effets de l'origine, de l'adresse, du sexe et de l'orientation sexuelle," Working Papers halshs-01878469, HAL.
    21. Adnan, Wifag & Arin, K. Peren & Charness, Gary & Lacomba, Juan A. & Lagos, Francisco, 2022. "Which social categories matter to people: An experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 125-145.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    social networks; homophily;

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion

    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:hal:cesptp:hal-01316758. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.