Research & Publications Office to host seminar on ‘Partisanship, Inequality, and Destructive Behavior: An Experiment with Republicans and Democrats’ on 16 January
The talk will be delivered by Prof. Subhasish M. Chowdhury, University of Sheffield
15 January, 2025, Bengaluru: The Office of Research and Publications (R&P) at IIM Bangalore will host a research seminar on, ‘Partisanship, Inequality, and Destructive Behavior: An Experiment with Republicans and Democrats’, to be led by Prof. Subhasish M. Chowdhury, University of Sheffield (Economics area), at 5 pm on 16 January 2025, at Classroom P-11.
Abstract: The researchers experimentally investigate the effects of political identity and income inequality on destructive behavior within the framework of Joy of Destruction games, where participants can destroy another participant's income at no cost. They manipulate whether participants had access to information about the other participant's political affiliation (Democrat or Republican) and income (50% higher than the decision maker's income). The results show that knowing the other participant's either political affiliation or income, escalates destructive behavior. However, the effects vary substantially across political identity. While disadvantageous inequality dominates the decision process for the Republicans, the political identity-based destruction dominates the behavior for the Democrats. Although there are some gender effects, these results are robust across race, being resident of a swing state, and the level of political opinion.
Speaker Profile: Subhasish M. Chowdhury is a Professor of Economics at the School of Economics, University of Sheffield. His areas of research interest cover both theoretical and applied investigations of problems in Conflict, Industrial Economics, Behavioral Economics, and Political Economy. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Economic Science Association (2023-2026). He also serves as a Co-editor of the journals ‘Frontiers in Behavioral Economics’, and ‘Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy’, and is an editorial board member of ‘Studies in Microeconomics’. Earlier, he served as Guest Editor for ‘Economic Inquiry’ and the ‘Journal of Economics Psychology’. His research has been published in journals such as the ‘The Economic Journal’, ‘European Economic Review’, ‘Games and Economic Behavior’, ‘Journal of Public Economics’, ‘Economic Theory’, etc.
Webpage Link: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/economics/staff/academic/subhasish-m-chowdhury
Research & Publications Office to host seminar on ‘Partisanship, Inequality, and Destructive Behavior: An Experiment with Republicans and Democrats’ on 16 January
The talk will be delivered by Prof. Subhasish M. Chowdhury, University of Sheffield
15 January, 2025, Bengaluru: The Office of Research and Publications (R&P) at IIM Bangalore will host a research seminar on, ‘Partisanship, Inequality, and Destructive Behavior: An Experiment with Republicans and Democrats’, to be led by Prof. Subhasish M. Chowdhury, University of Sheffield (Economics area), at 5 pm on 16 January 2025, at Classroom P-11.
Abstract: The researchers experimentally investigate the effects of political identity and income inequality on destructive behavior within the framework of Joy of Destruction games, where participants can destroy another participant's income at no cost. They manipulate whether participants had access to information about the other participant's political affiliation (Democrat or Republican) and income (50% higher than the decision maker's income). The results show that knowing the other participant's either political affiliation or income, escalates destructive behavior. However, the effects vary substantially across political identity. While disadvantageous inequality dominates the decision process for the Republicans, the political identity-based destruction dominates the behavior for the Democrats. Although there are some gender effects, these results are robust across race, being resident of a swing state, and the level of political opinion.
Speaker Profile: Subhasish M. Chowdhury is a Professor of Economics at the School of Economics, University of Sheffield. His areas of research interest cover both theoretical and applied investigations of problems in Conflict, Industrial Economics, Behavioral Economics, and Political Economy. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Economic Science Association (2023-2026). He also serves as a Co-editor of the journals ‘Frontiers in Behavioral Economics’, and ‘Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy’, and is an editorial board member of ‘Studies in Microeconomics’. Earlier, he served as Guest Editor for ‘Economic Inquiry’ and the ‘Journal of Economics Psychology’. His research has been published in journals such as the ‘The Economic Journal’, ‘European Economic Review’, ‘Games and Economic Behavior’, ‘Journal of Public Economics’, ‘Economic Theory’, etc.
Webpage Link: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/economics/staff/academic/subhasish-m-chowdhury