Types of Contact: A Field Experiment on Collaborative and Adversarial Caste Integration
-
Matt Lowe
- American Economic Review (Forthcoming)
Abstract
I estimate the effects of collaborative and adversarial intergroup
contact. I randomly assigned Indian men from different castes
to participate in cricket leagues or to serve as a control group.
League players faced variation in collaborative contact, through
random assignment to homogeneous-caste or mixed-caste teams,
and adversarial contact, through random assignment of opponents.
Collaborative contact increases cross-caste friendships and efficiency
in trade, and reduces own-caste favoritism. In contrast, adversarial
contact generally reduces cross-caste interaction and efficiency. League
participation reduces intergroup differences, suggesting that the positive
aspects of intergroup contact more than offset the negative aspects in
this setting.
Forthcoming Article Downloads