Mardi 21 mai 2019 — Séminaire DYNAMICS

INVITES :
  • David Atkin (MIT) ;
  • Biagio Speciale (PSE/​Paris 1).
HORAIRES ET LIEU :
  • 16:30–19:00 ;
  • PSE, 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris, Salle R1-09.
RESUMES :

David Atkin (MIT)
How Do We Choose Our Iden­tity ? A Revealed Prefe­rence Approach Using Food Consump­tion (travail conjoint avec Moses Shayo et Eve Sihra)

Are iden­ti­ties fungible ? How do people come to iden­tify with specific groups ? This paper proposes a revealed prefe­rence approach, using food consump­tion to uncover iden­tity choices. We focus on ethnic and reli­gious iden­ti­ties in India. We first show that consump­tion of iden­tity goods (e.g. beef and pork) responds syste­ma­ti­cally to forces suggested by social iden­tity research : group status and group salience, with the latter proxied by Hindu-Muslim violence. Moreover, iden­tity choices respond to the market cost of follo­wing the group’s pres­cribed beha­viors. We propose and esti­mate an appro­pria­tely modi­fied demand system. Using these esti­mates, we quan­tify the iden­tity changes that followed India’s 1991 economic reforms, and esti­mate the rela­tive impor­tance of the forces above in shaping iden­ti­ties. While conflict and status have been at the focus of social iden­tity research in recent decades, our results indi­cate that costs play a domi­nant role.

Biagio Speciale (PSE/​Paris 1)
Tell me what you eat, I will tell you who you are : Migrants’ Inte­gra­tion and Big Food Data (travail conjoint avec Hillel Rapo­port, Simone Bertoli, Fosca Gian­notti, Riccardo Guidotti et Dino Predreschi)