Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/339242 
Year of Publication: 
2026
Series/Report no.: 
Quaderni - Working Paper DSE No. 1219
Publisher: 
Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche (DSE), Bologna
Abstract: 
This paper studies whether alternative integration-policy framings affect cooperation in ethnically diverse groups. We conduct a lab-in-the-field experiment with 390 adolescents in mixed classrooms in Italy. Within each class, students were randomly assigned to small groups that received either a neutral condition, a common-identity framing emphasizing shared school belonging, or a multicultural framing highlighting family origins and local cultural diversity, and then played a repeated public goods game with and without punishment. In the neutral condition, students with an immigrant background contributed about 17 percent more than natives. Framing diversity through a multicultural lens increased natives' contributions by about 13 percent relative to their baseline level, nearly eliminating the initial cooperation gap, whereas the common-identity framing had no detectable effect. When punishment was introduced, treatment effects on contributions became small, but multicultural framing increased the sanctioning of free riders, particularly among natives. The results suggest that cooperation in diverse settings depends not only on minority integration but also on how majority-group members respond to diversity. Policies that recognize multicultural identities, rather than emphasizing generic shared belonging alone, can strengthen cooperative norms in heterogeneous environments.
Subjects: 
Cooperation
Multiculturalism
Public Goods
Integration
Identity Priming
Natural Identity
Social Identity
JEL: 
C93
D91
J15
Z13
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.