Jeitschko, Thomas D. and O’Connell, Séamus and Pecchenino, Rowena A. (2008) Identity, Collective Beliefs, and the Allocation of Resources. Economic and Social Review, 39 (1). pp. 39-54. ISSN 0012-9984

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Abstract

Humans are social creatures that interact in a number of different and at least partially independent social settings, such as work, home, social and political organisations, and church. In each setting one has an identity, or set of identities, which one is called upon to achieve. To obtain and maintain an identity one must dedicate scarce resources. The benefits of expending these resources may be, among other things, income; wealth; success; prestige; power; security; respect; social acceptance; spiritual fulfillment; and salvation. To better understand how the individual makes his resource allocation decisions given the many possible interactions, both positive and negative, across his identities, changes in collective beliefs defining identity, and the substitutability or complementarity of identities, we develop a simple behavioural model of an individual whose personal identity is an amalgam of two identities. We interpret the model in the context of an individual with a secular and a religious identity.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Paper delivered at the Twenty-First Annual Conference of the Irish Economic Association, Bunclody, Co. Wexford, 25-27 May 2007. We would like to thank Martin Ryan and the participants of the 2007 Irish Economics Association conference, and the seminar participants at the National University of Ireland, Galway. All remaining errors are ours alone.
Keywords:	Identity; Collective Beliefs; Allocation of Resources; behavioural model;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics, Finance and Accounting
Item ID:	2798
Depositing User:	Prof. Rowena Pecchenino
Date Deposited:	26 Oct 2011 14:39
Journal or Publication Title:	Economic and Social Review
Publisher:	ESRI
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://www.esr.ie/
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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