IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bar/bedcje/2006151.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

National Identity and the Preference for State Opting-Out in the Basque Country

Author

Listed:
  • Joan Costa Font
  • Ramon Tremosa Balcells

    (Universitat de Barcelona)

Abstract

We argue that preferences for secession are the expression of common unobserved factors determining national identity, and accordingly that identity matters. This paper examines the hypothesis of support for secession (independent Euskadi) and Basque national identity as being dependent in the light of a reformulation of Akerloff and Kranton (2000). We examine observed economic determinants of individuals national identity (and their perceived imagined community or nation) formation as well as those that influence the propensity of individuals to support the secession.. We undertake econometric survey analysis for the Basque Country using a bivariate probit model and publicly available data from the Spanish Centre for Sociological Research. Our results suggest evidence of a common determination of national identity and political preferences for the secession of the Basque Country consistently with Akerloff and Kranton model.

Suggested Citation

  • Joan Costa Font & Ramon Tremosa Balcells, 2006. "National Identity and the Preference for State Opting-Out in the Basque Country," Working Papers in Economics 151, Universitat de Barcelona. Espai de Recerca en Economia.
    • Handle: RePEc:bar:bedcje:2006151
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ere.ub.es/dtreball/E06151.rdf/at_download/file
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Branko Milanović, 2001. "Nations, Conglomerates and Empires: Trade-off Between Income and Sovereignty," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Dominick Salvatore & Marjan Svetličič & Jože P. Damijan (ed.), Small Countries in a Global Economy, chapter 1, pages 25-69, Palgrave Macmillan.
    2. Enrico Spolaore & Alberto Alesina & Romain Wacziarg, 2000. "Economic Integration and Political Disintegration," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1276-1296, December.
    3. Mel Watkins, 1978. "The Economics of Nationalism and the Nationality of Economics: A Critique of Neoclassical Theorizing," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 11(5), pages 87-120, November.
    4. 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.
    5. Breton, Albert & Fraschini, Angela, 2003. "Vertical Competition in Unitary States: The Case of Italy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 114(1-2), pages 57-77, January.
    6. Alberto Alesina, 2002. "The Size of Countries: Does it Matter?," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1975, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    7. Michel Le Breton & Shlomo Weber, 2003. "The Art of Making Everybody Happy: How to Prevent a Secession," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 50(3), pages 1-4.
    8. Howitt, Peter & Wintrobe, Ronald, 1995. "The political economy of inaction," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 329-353, March.
    9. Meier-Pesti, Katja & Kirchler, Erich, 2003. "Nationalism and patriotism as determinants of European identity and attitudes towards the euro," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 685-700, December.
    10. Buchanan, James M & Faith, Roger L, 1987. "Secession and the Limits of Taxation: Toward a Theory of Internal Exit," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 1023-1031, December.
    11. Sen, Amartya, 1985. "Goals, Commitment, and Identity," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 1(2), pages 341-355, Fall.
    12. Nadeau, Richard & Martin, Pierre & Blais, Andrã‰, 1999. "Attitude Towards Risk-Taking and Individual Choice in the Quebec Referendum on Sovereignty," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 29(3), pages 523-539, June.
    13. Finkel, Steven E. & Muller, Edward N., 1998. "Rational Choice and the Dynamics of Collective Political Action: Evaluating Alternative Models with Panel Data," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 92(1), pages 37-49, March.
    14. Albert Breton, 1964. "The Economics of Nationalism," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 72, pages 376-376.
    15. Galeotti,Gianluigi & Salmon,Pierre & Wintrobe,Ronald (ed.), 2000. "Competition and Structure," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521771337.
    16. Mr. Michel Le Breton & Mr. Shlomo Weber, 2001. "The Art of Making Everybody Happy: How to Prevent a Secession," IMF Working Papers 2001/176, International Monetary Fund.
    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. Ćurko Hrvoje, 2016. "Can Institutions of Autonomy Become Potentially “Subversive Institutions”?," Croatian International Relations Review, Sciendo, vol. 22(76), pages 52-84, October.

    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. Costa-Font, Joan & Tremosa-Balcells, Ramon, 2008. "Support for state opting out and stateless national identity in the Basque Country," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 2464-2477, December.
    2. Joan Costa-i-Font, 2010. "Unveiling Vertical State Downscaling: Identity and/or the Economy?," Europe in Question Discussion Paper Series of the London School of Economics (LEQs) 0, London School of Economics / European Institute.
    3. Joan Costa-i-Font, 2010. "Unveiling Vertical State Downscaling: Identity and/or the Economy?," LEQS – LSE 'Europe in Question' Discussion Paper Series 20, European Institute, LSE.
    4. Anesi, Vincent, 2012. "Secessionism and minority protection in an uncertain world," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 53-61.
    5. Anesi, Vincent, 2012. "Secessionism and minority protection in an uncertain world," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 53-61.
    6. Rohner, Dominic & Esteban, Joan & Flamand, Sabine & Morelli, Massimo, 2018. "A Dynamic Theory of Secession," CEPR Discussion Papers 12398, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Thierry Madiès & Grégoire Rota-Grasiozi & Jean-Pierre Tranchant & Cyril Trépier, 2018. "The economics of secession: a review of legal, theoretical, and empirical aspects," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 154(1), pages 1-18, December.
    8. Klaas Staal, 2004. "Country Size and Public Good Provision," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 04-026/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    9. Haimanko, Ori & Le Breton, Michel & Weber, Shlomo, 2005. "Transfers in a polarized country: bridging the gap between efficiency and stability," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(7), pages 1277-1303, July.
    10. Flamand, Sabine, 2019. "Partial decentralization as a way to prevent secessionist conflict," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 159-178.
    11. Grégoire Rota Graziosi, 2004. "La fragmentation politique, une revue de la littérature," Revue Française d'Économie, Programme National Persée, vol. 18(4), pages 193-223.
    12. Hamlin, Alan & Jennings, Colin, 2007. "Leadership and conflict," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 49-68, September.
    13. Joan-Maria Esteban & Sabine Flamand & Massimo Morelli & Dominic Rohner, 2018. "The Survival and Demise of the State: A Dynamic Theory of Secession," Working Papers 1028, Barcelona School of Economics.
    14. Staal, Klaas, 2006. "Country size and publicly provided goods," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 187, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    15. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Marko Stermšek, 2014. "The economics of secession. Analysing the economic impact of the collapse of the former Yugoslavia," Working Papers. Collection A: Public economics, governance and decentralization 1408, Universidade de Vigo, GEN - Governance and Economics research Network.
    16. Rhea Molato, 2015. "Public Debt and the Threat of Secession," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2015-04, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    17. Joan Costa-Font & Ana Rico, 2006. "Vertical Competition in the Spanish National Health System (NHS)," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 128(3), pages 477-498, September.
    18. Alesina, Alberto & Spolaore, Enrico, 2005. "War, peace, and the size of countries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(7), pages 1333-1354, July.
    19. ., 2019. "Economic theory of non-territorial unbundling," Chapters, in: The Political Economy of Non-Territorial Exit, chapter 1, pages 14-38, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Joan Esteban & Sabine Flamand & Massimo Morelli & Dominic Rohner, 2017. "Stay, Split or Strike: Theory and Evidence on Secessionist vs Centrist Conflict," Working Papers 609, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H19 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Other
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation

    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:bar:bedcje:2006151. 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: Espai de Recerca en Economia (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feubaes.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.