Working Paper: NBER ID: w29157
Authors: Michal Bauer; Jana Cahlkov; Julie Chytilov; Grard Roland; Tomas Zelinsky
Abstract: This paper provides experimental evidence showing that members of a majority group systematically shift punishment on innocent members of an ethnic minority. We develop a new incentivized task, the Punishing the Scapegoat Game, to measure how injustice affecting a member of one’s own group shapes punishment of an unrelated bystander (“a scapegoat”). We manipulate the ethnic identity of the scapegoats and study interactions between the majority group and the Roma minority in Slovakia. We find that when no harm is done, there is no evidence of discrimination against the ethnic minority. In contrast, when a member of one’s own group is harmed, the punishment ”passed” on innocent individuals more than doubles when they are from the minority, as compared to when they are from the dominant group. These results illuminate how individualized tensions can be transformed into a group conflict, dragging minorities into conflicts in a way that is completely unrelated to their behavior.
Keywords: Scapegoating; Punishment; Ethnic Minorities; Experimental Evidence
JEL Codes: C93; D74; D91; J15
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Harm to majority group member (J15) | Increased punishment of innocent Roma scapegoats (P37) |
| Harm to majority group member (J15) | Increased punishment of innocent members of the minority group (J15) |
| In-group member harmed (C92) | Bias in punishment towards minority scapegoats (J15) |
| Scapegoat's ethnic identity (J15) | Punishment behavior (K40) |
| Punisher's group member harmed (Y70) | Increased punitive measures against unrelated out-group member (C92) |