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Sorting in the Presence of Misperceptions

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  • Lisa Windsteiger

Abstract

In this paper I develop a general model of how social segregation and beliefs interact. Sorting decisions will be affected by beliefs about society, but these beliefs about society are in turn influenced by social interactions. In my model, people sort into social groups according to income, but become biased about the income distribution once they interact only with their own social circle. I define "biased sorting equilibria", which are stable partitions in which people want to stay in their chosen group, despite their acquired misperceptions about the other groups. I introduce a refinement criterion - the consistency requirement - and find necessary and su¢ cient conditions for existence and uniqueness of biased sorting equilibria.

Suggested Citation

  • Lisa Windsteiger, 2018. "Sorting in the Presence of Misperceptions," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2018-08, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    • Handle: RePEc:mpi:wpaper:tax-mpg-rps-2018-08
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Lisa Windsteiger, 2018. "Monopolistic Supply of Sorting, Inequality and Welfare," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2018-15, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Stratification; Assortative Matching; Group Formation; Beliefs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D85 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Network Formation
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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