Cultural Transmission and the Colonial Legacy: Evidence from Public Good Games Along a Historical Border
Loading...
Authors
Chaudhary, Latika
Rubin, Jared
Iyer, Sriya
Shrivastava, Anand
Subjects
cultural transmission
public goods game
natural experiment
laboratory experiment
field experiment
lab in the field experiment
India
public goods game
natural experiment
laboratory experiment
field experiment
lab in the field experiment
India
Advisors
Date of Issue
2018-01
Date
Publisher
Language
Abstract
We conduct a standard public goods game in three small towns in the Indian state of Rajasthan. Until independence in 1947, these towns were assigned to (barely) opposite sides of a colonial border separating British India from the Princely States. One town fell on the British India side of the border on account of historical military conquest, unrelated to any geographic or commercial advantages. In line with the historical literature, we conjecture that past institutional differences related to the presence of outsiders and local governance between the Princely States and British India in Rajasthan engendered cultural differences regarding willingness to free ride on publicly provided goods, especially in the presence of “outsiders.” If this conjecture is correct, our experiment permits a test of whether such cultural differences were passed on inter-generationally; the towns have been under similar governance structures for decades, suggesting the modern institutions cannot account for any observed differences. We find that participants of the former Princely State town make lower contributions to mixed groups than do participants from the British India town. Moreover, we find these effects are driven by participants with strong family ties to the town.
Type
Article
Description
Series/Report No
Department
Organization
Identifiers
NPS Report Number
Sponsors
Funder
Format
Citation
Chaudhary, Latika, et al. "Cultural Transmission and the Colonial Legacy: Evidence from Public Good Games Along a Historical Border." (2018).
Distribution Statement
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.