Do minorities misrepresent their ethnicity to avoid discrimination?

0509445 - NHÚ 2020 DE eng V - Research Report
Kudashvili, Nikoloz - Lergetporer, P.
Do minorities misrepresent their ethnicity to avoid discrimination?.
Munich: CESifo, 2019. 71 s. CESifo Working Papers, 7861. ISSN 2364-1428
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA17-13869S
Institutional support: RVO:67985998
Keywords : discrimination * trust game * experiment
OECD category: Applied Economics, Econometrics

Discrimination against minorities is pervasive in many societies, but little is known about minorities’ strategies to avoid being discriminated against. In our trust game among 758 highschool students in the country of Georgia, ethnic Georgian trustors discriminate against the ethnic Armenian minority group. We introduce an initial signaling stage to investigate Armenians’ willingness to hide their ethnicity to avoid expected discrimination. 43 percent of Armenian trustees untruthfully signal to have a Georgian name. Signaling behavior is driven by expected transfers and non pecuniary motives. This strategic misrepresentation of ethnicity increases Georgian trustors’ expected back transfers and eliminates their discriminatory behavior.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0300189