ERC - Sigrid Suetens

Discriminative preferences and fairness ideals in diverse societies

Consolidator Grant

1-1-2018 to 31-12-2023

Do social preferences of the native majority in Europe depend on others’ ethnicity? Are people from the majority as altruistic, reciprocal, envious to ethnic minorities as compared to other majority? Do they have different fairness ideals—what constitutes a fair distribution of resources from the perspective of an impartial spectator—when it comes to people from the majority than when it comes to people with a minority background? Do these preferences depend on exposure to ethnic minorities, and, if so, how?
These questions are at the heart of the ERC project.

Who is or was on the team?

Pascal Achard
Sueda Evirgen
Riccardo Ghidoni
Yi Sheng
Sigrid Suetens
Paul van Bruggen

Academic publications and working papers

Z. Murad, E. Ozturk, Y. Sheng and S. Suetens. Ethnic salience and discrimination. CEPR Discussion paper 18866, 2024.
P. Achard, S. Albrecht, R. Ghidoni, E. Cettolin and S. Suetens. Local exposure to refugees changed attitudes to ethnic minorities in the Netherlands. Economic Journal, 2024. Forthcoming. (formerly published as CEPR Discussion paper 17294).
P. Achard and S. Suetens. The causal effect of ethnic diversity on redistribution and the role of discrimination. Journal of Economic Surveys, vol. 37, 1678-1696, 2023.
P. Achard. Ethnic enclaves and cultural assimilation. CentER Discussion paper 2022-011.
X. Xu, J. Potters and S. Suetens. Competitive versus cooperative interactions and in-group bias. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, vol. 179, 69-79, 2020.
E. Cettolin and S. Suetens. Return on trust is lower for immigrants. Economic Journal. vol. 129, 1992-2009, 2019.

Work in progress

S. Evirgen and S. Suetens. Double redistribution standards in Germany and France.
A. Cappelen, E. Cettolin, S. Evirgen, S. Suetens and B. Tungodden. Moral wiggling and ethnic discrimination. (pre-registration)
P. Phung, B. van Leeuwen and S. Suetens. Emotional discrimination. (pre-registration)
Y. Sheng and S. Suetens. Other-regarding ethnic preferences. (pre-registration)
S. Suetens and P. van Bruggen. Revealed ethnic discrimination.
B. van Leeuwen, E. Cettolin and S. Suetens. The effect of similarity on tastes and beliefs.

For policy makers

Mensen in de buurt van asielzoekerscentrum krijgen positievere houding tegenover immigranten. New Scientist, May 11, 2024.
Local exposure to asylum seekers promotes a more positive attitude to ethnic diversity. Open Access Government, March 4, 2024.
Waar wel vluchtelingen worden opgevangen, hebben minder mensen er een probleem mee. NRC, January 19, 2024.
Positiever denken over asielzoekers? Ga een tijdje naast ze wonen. De Correspondent, October 3, 2023.
Taste-based discrimination: How does it work? Open Access Government. September 22, 2020.
Tastes in discrimination research. EU Research. Spring 2020.

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