Can the Culture of Honor Lead to Inefficient Conventions? : Experimental Evidence from India

Brooks, Benjamin ; Hoff, Karla ; Pandey, Priyanka

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: culture;    honor;    caste;    coordination;    conventions;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7829
RP-ID  :  WPS7829

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Experiments in the United States havefound that pairs of individuals are generally able to formsocially efficient conventions in coordination games ofcommon interest in a remarkably short time. This paper showsthat this ability is not universal. The paper reports theresults of a field experiment in India in which pairs of menfrom high and low castes repeatedly played a coordinationgame of common interest. Low-caste pairs overwhelminglycoordinated on the efficient equilibrium, consistent withearlier findings. In contrast, high-caste pairs coordinatedon the efficient equilibrium at a much lower rate, with only47 percent in efficient coordination in the final period ofthe experiment. The study traces the divergence in outcomesto how an individual responds to the low payoff he obtainswhen he attempts efficient coordination but his partner doesnot. After this event, high-caste men are significantly lesslikely than low-caste men to continue trying for efficiency.The limited ability to form the efficient convention can beexplained by the framing effect of the culture of honoramong high-caste men, which may lead them to interpret thisevent as a challenge to their honor, which triggers aretaliatory response.