This project will integrate economic theory and practice with significant findings in sociology and psychology by considering the implications of the concept of identity for economics. It will yield a better understanding of the relation between economics and human motivation, especially within groups and organizations. This perspective will increase our understanding of gender discrimination, minority poverty, academic achievement in schools, the division of labor in households, the role and impact of corporate governance, and the role of compensation as incentive. Especially, it incorporates into economics the concept of the fiduciary, thereby giving economists a new perspective on the role and meaning of organizational governance. In addition, this work suggests a major role for organizational leadership in encouraging workers' identification with their jobs and with their organizations.
The project will further show theoretically that many of the non-economic motives for obedience can be naturally captured in identity modeling. Psychological experiments have shown that even in the absence of economic reward, subjects are surprisingly willing to obey experimenters. The project will explore such findings in a new context, that of economic-style laboratory experiments. It expects to find identity-related reasons for obedience, and also to establish the circumstances under which such behavior is likely to occur. Such identity-related non-economic motivations for obedience would suggest a likely role of identity-related motivation in broader contexts, outside the laboratory. Such behavior is likely to be of great importance for a wide range of social policy: from the proper stance toward corporate governance to the proper remedies for minority poverty.
