Ethnicity and Time Preferences: Evidences from Afghanistan

Abstract

Identity is one of the most essential factors affecting the behavior and economic performance of individuals. Identity economics, as an important subset of behavioral economics, studies the impact of different components of identity on human economic behavior. This paper, emphasizing the differences between human behavior and that presented in conventional models, takes into account the social-psychological considerations by using the priming method in a field experiment on a sample of Afghan students from Tajik and Hazara ethnicity. The results show that in the multi-ethnic community of Afghanistan, the ethnicity of the Afghan people, as a crucial element of their social identity, has a significant effect on their time preferences; so that making the ethnicity salient, makes the Tajik people more present bias compared to the Hazara people. Nonetheless, without priming the ethnicity, the preference of the Hazara has more tendency towards the present.

Keywords

• social identity
• ethnicity
• identity economics
• experimental economics
• afghanistan.