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Diverging identities: a model of class formation
- Source :
- Oxford Economic Papers. 72:567-584
- Publication Year :
- 2019
- Publisher :
- Oxford University Press (OUP), 2019.
-
Abstract
- This paper is an application of Identity Economics. Since the literature in this field is recent, the paper begins with an extensive review of the key contributions. The current paper analyses the process and psychological costs of social polarization arising from economic inequalities. It may have some application to the current social divisions evident in the votes for Brexit and Donald Trump, and protest movements such as the gilets jaunes. In a simple model, people rationally maximize their utility from esteem, by selecting a subjective salient identity from two objective identities: nationality and job. The model shows how an increase in wages for the upper half of the population can lead those with high incomes to drop nationality as their salient identity, forming a new ‘elite’ class. This rational switch in the identity of high-income workers has efficiency and redistributive effects, reducing aggregate utility and generating regressive transfers.
- Subjects :
- Economics and Econometrics
education.field_of_study
Social polarization
Inequality
Field (Bourdieu)
media_common.quotation_subject
05 social sciences
Population
Identity (social science)
Microeconomics
Salient
0502 economics and business
Economics
Class formation
050207 economics
education
Identity economics
050205 econometrics
media_common
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14643812 and 00307653
- Volume :
- 72
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Oxford Economic Papers
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........c10d66c4c8835292078bd3c27a72f047