Event

Matt LoweAssistant Professor of Economics, University of British ColumbiaThursday, November 12, 2020 - 12:00A Virtual CASI Seminar via Zoom — 12 Noon EST | 10:30pm ISTAbout the Seminar:Prof. Lowe estimates the effects of collaborative and adversarial intergroup contact and 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.About the Speaker:Matt Lowe is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of British Columbia. His work is at the intersection of development economics, political economy, and behavioural economics. Most recently, his research has explored the effects of intergroup contact in two contrasting settings: caste in India and politics in Iceland. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from MIT in 2018 and was a postdoctoral fellow at the briq Institute from 2018-19.