TY - JOUR
T1 - Scapegoating in evaluation decisions
AU - Zussman, Asaf
N1 - Funding Information: I thank the editor, Laura Schechter, an associate editor, two anonymous reviewers, Revital Zussman and audiences at the Hebrew University and the 2020 EALE/SOLE/AASLE Conference for useful comments. Aynat Geffen and Shahar Lahad provided excellent research assistance. I am grateful to officials at the Israeli Ministry of Transport and Road Safety and at the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics for their help with the data. Financial support for the project was generously provided by the I-Core Program of the Planning and Budgeting Committee at the Israel Science Foundation (grant no. 1821/12) and The Maurice Falk Institute for Economic Research in Israel. Funding Information: ☆ I thank the editor, Laura Schechter, an associate editor, two anonymous reviewers, Revital Zussman and audiences at the Hebrew University and the 2020 EALE/SOLE/AASLE Conference for useful comments. Aynat Geffen and Shahar Lahad provided excellent research assistance. I am grateful to officials at the Israeli Ministry of Transport and Road Safety and at the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics for their help with the data. Financial support for the project was generously provided by the I-Core Program of the Planning and Budgeting Committee at the Israel Science Foundation (grant no. 1821/12) and The Maurice Falk Institute for Economic Research in Israel. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2021/6
Y1 - 2021/6
N2 - Scapegoating – attributing inordinate blame for a negative outcome to a target individual or group – is considered an important driver of discrimination by psychologists, but has received little attention by economists. This paper helps fill the gap by providing evidence for scapegoating in a natural setting. Using data on three million driving tests held in Israel, I find that an increase in the number of unrelated traffic accident fatalities leads driving testers to discriminate against out-group students. Scapegoating characterizes all groups of testers – Jewish and Arab, male and female – and works to increase ethnic in-group bias and decrease gender out-group bias.
AB - Scapegoating – attributing inordinate blame for a negative outcome to a target individual or group – is considered an important driver of discrimination by psychologists, but has received little attention by economists. This paper helps fill the gap by providing evidence for scapegoating in a natural setting. Using data on three million driving tests held in Israel, I find that an increase in the number of unrelated traffic accident fatalities leads driving testers to discriminate against out-group students. Scapegoating characterizes all groups of testers – Jewish and Arab, male and female – and works to increase ethnic in-group bias and decrease gender out-group bias.
KW - Discrimination
KW - Ethnicity
KW - Evaluation decisions
KW - Gender
KW - Scapegoating
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85104324458&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2021.03.025
DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2021.03.025
M3 - Article
SN - 0167-2681
VL - 186
SP - 152
EP - 163
JO - Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
JF - Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
ER -
