IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jbioec/v19y2017i3d10.1007_s10818-017-9249-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Twin-killing in some traditional societies: an economic perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Andrés Marroquín

    (Universidad Francisco Marroquín, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas)

  • Colleen Haight

    (San José State University)

Abstract

Historically, some societies around the world killed newborn twins, though the practice was forsaken in the early twentieth century. Anthropologists have proposed different theses: (1) the delivery of twins occurred when the mother cheated on her husband, or committed a great sin, and killing the twins was the penalty, (2) twin-killing was done to assert that human beings were different from animals among which multiple births in the same delivery were seen, (3) twins brought a dilemma to the kinship structure of societies and to cope with it different rules were adopted, twin-killing being the extreme one, (4) twin-killing was a means to face resource stress. We argue that although those interpretations are useful, we can improve the understanding of that phenomenon by adding an identity economics model, where twins are a taboo. Identity economics helps us explain the persistence of the practice and its eventual decline. We make our case with examples from the Igbo of Nigeria.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrés Marroquín & Colleen Haight, 2017. "Twin-killing in some traditional societies: an economic perspective," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 261-279, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbioec:v:19:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s10818-017-9249-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s10818-017-9249-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10818-017-9249-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10818-017-9249-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2011. "Identity, Morals, and Taboos: Beliefs as Assets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(2), pages 805-855.
    2. Akerlof, George A & Dickens, William T, 1982. "The Economic Consequences of Cognitive Dissonance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(3), pages 307-319, June.
    3. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2000. "Economics and Identity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 715-753.
    4. Christopher J. Coyne* & Rachel L. Coyne, 2014. "The identity economics of female genital mutilation," Journal of Developing Areas, Tennessee State University, College of Business, vol. 48(2), pages 137-152, April-Jun.
    5. Chaim Fershtman & Uri Gneezy & Moshe Hoffman, 2011. "Taboos and Identity: Considering the Unthinkable," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 139-164, May.
    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. Fenske, James & Wang, Shizhuo, 2023. "Tradition and mortality: Evidence from twin infanticide in Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).

    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. Jean-Paul Carvalho, 2017. "Coordination and culture," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 64(3), pages 449-475, October.
    2. Ging-Jehli, Nadja R. & Schneider, Florian H. & Weber, Roberto A., 2020. "On self-serving strategic beliefs," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 341-353.
    3. Shinji Teraji, 2019. "Identity switching and conservation on the commons," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 66(2), pages 101-113, June.
    4. Mireia Borrell-Porta & Valentina Contreras & Joan Costa-i-Font, 2021. "Is 'Employment during Motherhood' a 'Value Changing Experience'?," CESifo Working Paper Series 9222, CESifo.
    5. te Velde, Vera L., 2022. "Heterogeneous norms: Social image and social pressure when people disagree," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 319-340.
    6. Akerlof, Robert, 2017. "Value Formation: The Role of Esteem," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 1-19.
    7. Schnellenbach, Jan, 2012. "Nudges and norms: On the political economy of soft paternalism," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 266-277.
    8. Bernard, Mark & Hett, Florian & Mechtel, Mario, 2016. "Social identity and social free-riding," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 4-17.
    9. Mechtel, Mario & Hett, Florian & Kröll, Markus, 2014. "Endogenous Social Identity and Group Choice," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100307, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    10. Schnellenbach, Jan & Schubert, Christian, 2015. "Behavioral political economy: A survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 395-417.
    11. Christoph Engel & Paul A. M. Van Lange, 2021. "Social mindfulness is normative when costs are low, but rapidly declines with increases in costs," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 16(2), pages 290-322, March.
    12. Aksoy, Billur & Chadd, Ian & Koh, Boon Han, 2023. "Sexual identity, gender, and anticipated discrimination in prosocial behavior," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    13. Nyborg, Karine, 2011. "I don't want to hear about it: Rational ignorance among duty-oriented consumers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 263-274, August.
    14. Shaun P. Hargreaves Heap & Abhijit Ramalingam & Brock K. Stoddard, 2018. "Within-group inequality in inter-group competition," Working Papers 18-17, Department of Economics, Appalachian State University.
    15. 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.
    16. Mitesh Kataria & Tobias Regner, 2015. "Honestly, why are you donating money to charity? An experimental study about self-awareness in status-seeking behavior," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 79(3), pages 493-515, November.
    17. An, Jiafu & Jiang, Mengfei & Xu, Jiaman, 2021. "Professional norms and risk-taking of bank employees: Do expectations of peers’ risk preferences matter?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    18. Stefan Bechtold & Christoph Engel, 2017. "The Valuation of Moral Rights: A Field Experiment," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2017_04, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    19. Klaus M. Schmidt & Martin Spann & Robert Zeithammer, 2015. "Pay What You Want as a Marketing Strategy in Monopolistic and Competitive Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(6), pages 1217-1236, June.
    20. Rebitzer, James B. & Taylor, Lowell J., 2011. "Extrinsic Rewards and Intrinsic Motives: Standard and Behavioral Approaches to Agency and Labor Markets," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 8, pages 701-772, Elsevier.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Twins; Economics of religion; Taboos; Institutions; Identity; Culture; Igbo;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B15 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary
    • B52 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Modern Monetary Theory;
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    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:kap:jbioec:v:19:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s10818-017-9249-8. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.