Семинар "Политическая экономика": Alexander Yarkin (Brown University) о роли исторической распространенности болезней и современных эпидемий в формировании взглядов людей на различных внегрупповых членов, основанных на этнической, расовой, языковой, культурной и других линиях идентичности.

На семинаре "Политическая экономика" Alexander Yarkin (Brown University) рассказал о том, что массовые социальные потрясения, такие как смертельные эпидемии, могут усилить поляризацию социальных установок.

Тема: Diseases, diversity, and out-group attitudes: Evidence from 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak and historical pathogen prevalence

Аннотация:

In this paper, I explore the persistence and change in the attitudes towards diversity – people’s views on various out-group members based on ethnic, racial, linguistic, cultural and other identity lines. Specifically, I address the role of historical disease prevalence and contemporary epidemics in shaping these attitudes. First, I utilize the historical data on the prevalence of several infectious diseases to show that larger risks of contracting a novel pathogen historically map into worse out-group attitudes today. This result holds for  various measures of out-group attitudes and several identification strategies. Second, I explore the case of West African Ebola outbreak in 2014-2016 to show that, indeed, an exposure to a larger Ebola shock leads to lower national, as opposed to ethnic, identity at the local level. However, there exists a large heterogeneity in the effects of Ebola: people living in regions that (i) were more ethnically diverse, and (ii) had more trust in strangers to begin with, actually show an increase in their national identity. Thus, massive social shocks, such as deadly epidemics, may increase polarization in social attitudes.

Совместный научный семинар "Политическая экономика" с Лабораторией исследования социальных отношений и многообразия общества РЭШ (ЛИСОМО РЭШ) и Международным центром изучения институтов и развития НИУ ВШЭ (МЦИИР ВШЭ) состоялся 28 апреля 2020 г.

Руководитель семинара: А.В. Захаров (НИУ ВШЭ), К.И. Сонин (НИУ ВШЭ, University of Chicago)