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Favoring your in-group can harm both them and you: Ethnicity and public goods provision in China

Author

Listed:
  • Cesar Mantilla
  • Ling Zhou

    (TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - Comue de Toulouse - Communauté d'universités et établissements de Toulouse - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

  • Charlotte Wang
  • Donghui Yang
  • Suping Shen
  • Paul Seabright

    (TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - Comue de Toulouse - Communauté d'universités et établissements de Toulouse - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

Abstract

Do people discriminate between co-ethnics and others in cooperative interactions? In an experiment in China, we find that participants in trust games send around 15% more to partners they know to be co-ethnics than to those whose ethnicity they do not know. Re- ceivers' behavior is determined by amounts received and not by perceived ethnicity. In line with previous literature we find that subjects contribute more to public goods in ethnically homogeneous groups than in mixed groups. We find evidence for a new explanation that is not due to different intrinsic preferences for cooperation with ingroup and outgroup members. Instead, subjects' willingness to punish in-group members for free-riding is re- duced when out-group members are present. This leads to lower contributions and net earnings in mixed groups. Thus favoritism towards co-ethnics can hurt both those engag- ing in favoritism and those being favored.

Suggested Citation

  • Cesar Mantilla & Ling Zhou & Charlotte Wang & Donghui Yang & Suping Shen & Paul Seabright, 2021. "Favoring your in-group can harm both them and you: Ethnicity and public goods provision in China," Post-Print hal-03182510, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03182510
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.02.016
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    Cited by:

    1. Pisor, Anne & Ross, Cody T., 2023. "Parochial altruism: What it is and why it varies," OSF Preprints tc7xa_v1, Center for Open Science.
    2. Dhami, Sanjit & Wei, Mengxing & Mamidi, Pavan, 2024. "Religious identity, trust, reciprocity, and prosociality: Theory and evidence," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    3. repec:osf:osfxxx:aebxy_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Columbus, Simon & Feld, Lars P. & Kasper, Matthias & Rablen, Matthew D., 2025. "Institutional rules and biased rule enforcement," Freiburg Discussion Papers on Constitutional Economics 25/1, Walter Eucken Institut e.V..
    5. Boulu-Reshef, Béatrice & Schulhofer-Wohl, Jonah, 2022. "The impact of distance on parochial altruism: An experimental investigation," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    6. Mantilla, Cesar & Gelvez Ferreira, Juan David Gelvez & Nieto, Maria Paula, 2022. "Costly Norm Enforcement through Sanctions and Rewards: An Experiment with Colombian Future Police Officers," OSF Preprints aebxy, Center for Open Science.

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    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D9 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

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