IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/14821.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Covid-19 Crisis Fuels Hostility against Foreigners

Author

Listed:
  • Bauer, Michal
  • Chytilová, Julie
  • BartoÅ¡, VojtÄ›ch
  • Cahlíková, Jana

Abstract

Aggressive behavior against out-group members often rises during periods of economic hardship and health pandemics. Here, we test the widespread concern that the Covid-19 crisis may fuel hostility against people from other nations or ethnic minorities. Using a controlled money-burning task, we elicited hostile behavior among a nationally representative sample (n=2,186) in the Czech Republic, at a time when the entire population was under lockdown. We provide causal evidence that exogenously elevating salience of the Covid-19 crisis magnifies hostility against foreigners. This behavioral response is similar across various demographic sub-groups. The results underscore the importance of not inflaming anti-foreigner sentiments and suggest that efforts to restore international trade and cooperation will need to address both social and economic damage.

Suggested Citation

  • Bauer, Michal & Chytilová, Julie & BartoÅ¡, VojtÄ›ch & Cahlíková, Jana, 2020. "Covid-19 Crisis Fuels Hostility against Foreigners," CEPR Discussion Papers 14821, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:14821
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP14821
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John A. List & Azeem M. Shaikh & Yang Xu, 2019. "Multiple hypothesis testing in experimental economics," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(4), pages 773-793, December.
    2. Toman Barsbai & Victoria Licuanan & Andreas Steinmayr & Erwin Tiongson & Dean Yang, 2020. "Information and the Acquisition of Social Network Connections," NBER Working Papers 27346, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Abbink, Klaus & Sadrieh, Abdolkarim, 2009. "The pleasure of being nasty," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 105(3), pages 306-308, December.
    4. Michal Bauer & Julie Chytilová & Barbara Pertold-Gebicka, 2014. "Parental background and other-regarding preferences in children," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(1), pages 24-46, March.
    5. Ernst Fehr & Karla Hoff & Mayuresh Kshetramade, 2008. "Spite and Development," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 494-499, May.
    6. Fehr, Ernst & Glätzle-Rützler, Daniela & Sutter, Matthias, 2013. "The development of egalitarianism, altruism, spite and parochialism in childhood and adolescence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 369-383.
    7. Ernst Fehr & Helen Bernhard & Bettina Rockenbach, 2008. "Egalitarianism in young children," Nature, Nature, vol. 454(7208), pages 1079-1083, August.
    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. Cevat Giray Aksoy & Antonio Cabrales & Mathias Dolls & Ruben Durante & Lisa Windsteiger, 2021. "Calamities, Common Interests, Shared Identity: What Shapes Altruism and Reciprocity?," EconPol Working Paper 64, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    2. Islam, Asad & Pakrashi, Debayan & Vlassopoulos, Michael & Wang, Liang Choon, 2021. "Stigma and misconceptions in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic: A field experiment in India," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 278(C).
    3. Abel Brodeur & David Gray & Anik Islam & Suraiya Bhuiyan, 2021. "A literature review of the economics of COVID‐19," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 1007-1044, September.
    4. Runjing Lu & Yanying Sheng, 2020. "From Fear to Hate: How the Covid-19 Pandemic Sparks Racial Animus in the United States," Papers 2007.01448, arXiv.org.
    5. Aksoy Cevat Giray & Antonio Cabrales & Mathias Dolls & Windsteiger Lisa, 2020. "COVID-19, Trust and Solidarity in the EU," EconPol Policy Reports 27, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    6. Gianmarco Daniele & Andrea F.M. Martinangeli & Francesco Passarelli & Willem Sas & Lisa Windsteiger, 2020. "Wind of Change? Experimental Survey Evidence on the Covid-19 Shock and Socio-Political Attitudes in Europe," CESifo Working Paper Series 8517, CESifo.
    7. Aksoy, Cevat Giray & Dolls, Mathias & Durante, Ruben & Windsteiger, Lisa, 2021. "Calamities, Common Interests, Shared Identity: What Shapes Social Cohesion in Europe?," CEPR Discussion Papers 16186, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Jorrat, Diego & Alfonso-Costillo, Antonio & Espín, Antonio M. & Garcia, Teresa & Kovářík, Jaromír, 2020. "Exposure to the Covid-19 pandemic and generosity," MPRA Paper 103389, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Hensel, Lukas & Witte, Marc & Caria, A. Stefano & Fetzer, Thiemo & Fiorin, Stefano & Götz, Friedrich M. & Gomez, Margarita & Haushofer, Johannes & Ivchenko, Andriy & Kraft-Todd, Gordon & Reutskaja, El, 2022. "Global Behaviors, Perceptions, and the Emergence of Social Norms at the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 473-496.
    10. Darya Korlyakova, 2021. "Learning about Ethnic Discrimination from Different Information Sources," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp689, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    11. Cappelen, Alexander W. & Falch, Ranveig & Sørensen, Erik Ø. & Tungodden, Bertil, 2021. "Solidarity and fairness in times of crisis," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 1-11.
    12. Ivaldi, Marc & Palikot, Emil, 2020. "Sharing when stranger equals danger: Ridesharing during Covid-19 pandemic," TSE Working Papers 20-1135, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    13. Anthony Edo & Yvonne Giesing, 2020. "Has immigration contributed to the rise of right-wing extremist parties in Europe?," CEPII Policy Brief 2020-34, CEPII research center.
    14. Hakan Yilmazkuday, 2020. "COVID‐19 and unequal social distancing across demographic groups," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(6), pages 1235-1248, December.
    15. Egorov, Georgy & Enikolopov, Ruben & Makarin, Alexey & Petrova, Maria, 2021. "Divided we stay home: Social distancing and ethnic diversity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    16. Lu, Runjing & Sheng, Sophie Yanying, 2022. "How racial animus forms and spreads: Evidence from the coronavirus pandemic," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 82-98.
    17. Giofré, Maela, 2021. "COVID-19 stringency measures and foreign investment: An early assessment," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    18. Yvonne Giesing & Maria Hofbauer, 2020. "How does Covid-19 Affect Migration and Integration?," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 73(07), pages 41-46, July.
    19. Remi Jedwab & Amjad M. Khan & Richard Damania & Jason Russ & Esha D. Zaveri, 2020. "Pandemics, Poverty, and Social Cohesion: Lessons from the Past and Possible Solutions for COVID-19," Working Papers 2020-13, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.

    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. Bügelmayer, Elisabeth & Katharina Spiess, C., 2014. "Spite and cognitive skills in preschoolers," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 154-167.
    2. Fabian Kosse & Thomas Deckers & Pia Pinger & Hannah Schildberg-Hörisch & Armin Falk, 2020. "The Formation of Prosociality: Causal Evidence on the Role of Social Environment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(2), pages 434-467.
    3. Valeria Maggian & Marie Claire Villeval, 2016. "Social preferences and lying aversion in children," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(3), pages 663-685, September.
    4. Sutter, Matthias & Zoller, Claudia & Glätzle-Rützler, Daniela, 2019. "Economic behavior of children and adolescents – A first survey of experimental economics results," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 98-121.
    5. Michal Bauer & Nathan Fiala & Ian Levely, 2018. "Trusting Former Rebels: An Experimental Approach to Understanding Reintegration after Civil War," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(613), pages 1786-1819, August.
    6. Ingvild Almås & Alexander W Cappelen & Kjell G Salvanes & Erik Ø Sørensen & Bertil Tungodden, 2017. "Fairness and family background," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 16(2), pages 117-131, May.
    7. Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah & Deckers, Thomas & Falk, Armin & Kosse, Fabian, 2014. "How Does Socio-Economic Status Shape a Child's Personality?," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100285, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    8. Koch, Alexander & Nafziger, Julia & Nielsen, Helena Skyt, 2015. "Behavioral economics of education," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 3-17.
    9. Bindra, Parampreet Christopher & Glätzle-Rützler, Daniela & Lergetporer, Philipp, 2020. "Discrimination at young age: Experimental evidence from preschool children," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 55-70.
    10. Wladislaw Mill & John Morgan, 2022. "The cost of a divided America: an experimental study into destructive behavior," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(3), pages 974-1001, June.
    11. Alexander W. Cappelen & John A. List & Anya Samek & Bertil Tungodden, 2016. "The Effect of Early Education on Social Preferences," NBER Working Papers 22898, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Bašić, Zvonimir & Falk, Armin & Kosse, Fabian, 2020. "The development of egalitarian norm enforcement in childhood and adolescence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 667-680.
    13. Horn, Dániel & Kiss, Hubert János & Lénárd, Tünde, 2022. "Gender differences in preferences of adolescents: Evidence from a large-scale classroom experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 478-522.
    14. Armin Falk & Fabian Kosse, 2016. "Early childhood environment, breastfeeding and the formation of preferences," Working Papers 2016-036, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    15. Sanjaya, Muhammad Ryan, 2023. "Antisocial behavior in experiments: What have we learned from the past two decades?," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 104-115.
    16. Yang, Xiaojun & Nie, Zihan & Qiu, Jianying & Tu, Qin, 2020. "Institutional preferences, social preferences and cooperation: Evidence from a lab-in-the-field experiment in rural China," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    17. Kirsten Häger & Bastian Oud & Daniel Schunk, 2012. "Egalitarian Envy: Cross-cultural Variation in the Development of Envy in Children," Jena Economics Research Papers 2012-059, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    18. Ben-Ner, Avner & List, John A. & Putterman, Louis & Samek, Anya, 2017. "Learned generosity? An artefactual field experiment with parents and their children," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 28-44.
    19. Kai Barron & Heike Harmgart & Steffen Huck & Sebastian O. Schneider & Matthias Sutter, 2023. "Discrimination, Narratives, and Family History: An Experiment with Jordanian Host and Syrian Refugee Children," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(4), pages 1008-1016, July.
    20. Zenou, Yves & Boucher, Vincent & Tumen, Semih & Vlassopoulos, Michael & Wahba, Jackline, 2020. "Ethnic Mixing in Early Childhood: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment and a Structural Model," CEPR Discussion Papers 15528, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Covid-19; Health and economic crisis; Hostility; Inter-group conflict; Discrimination; Experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination

    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:cpr:ceprdp:14821. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.