Will a government find it financially easier to neutralize a looming protest if more groups are involved?
We study a policy response to an increase in post-merger social stress. If a merger of groups of people is viewed as a revision of their social space, then the merger alters people's comparators and increases social stress: the social stress of a merged population is greater than the sum of the levels of social stress of the constituent populations when apart. We use social stress as a proxy measure for looming social protest. As a response to the post-merger increase in social stress, we consider a policy aimed at reversing the negative effect of the merger by bringing the social stress of the merged population back to the sum of the pre-merger levels of social stress of the constituent populations when apart. We present, in the form of an algorithm, a cost-effective policy response which is publicly financed and does not reduce the incomes of the members of the merged population. We then compare the financial cost of implementing such a policy when the merger involves more or fewer groups. We show that the cost may fall as the number of merging groups rises.
Year of publication: |
2016
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Authors: | Stark, Oded ; Zawojska, Ewa |
Publisher: |
Bonn : University of Bonn, Center for Development Research (ZEF) |
Subject: | merger of populations | revision of social space | aggregate relative deprivation | social stress | a cost-effective policy response |
Saved in:
freely available
Series: | |
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Type of publication: | Book / Working Paper |
Type of publication (narrower categories): | Working Paper |
Language: | English |
Other identifiers: | 867047887 [GVK] hdl:10419/149609 [Handle] |
Classification: | d04 ; D63 - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement ; F55 - International Institutional Arrangements ; H53 - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs ; P51 - Comparative Analysis of Economic Systems |
Source: |
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011588711