Who we think we are affects how we learn, what kind of work we do, and even the shoes we wear.
‘Identity may be the most important economic decision people make.” I read those words, written by Nobel Prize-winning economist George Akerlof and his collaborator Rachel Kranton, while sitting uncomfortably on the floor in the stacks at the Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago in 2001. It was both obvious and revolutionary: How you view your role in the world will affect your choices. Yet even the great economic thinkers hadn’t incorporated identity—a concept well known to sociologists and psychologists—into a formal economic model.
In this polarized presidential election, seeing yourself as a “Trump voter” or a “Harris voter” doesn’t simply reflect coldly calculated policy preferences or even behavior in the voting booth. It’s an expression of identity that goes along with many other such expressions, from the car or truck you drive to the clothes you wear.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Wall Street Journal (paywall)
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Roland G. Fryer, Jr., a John A. Paulson Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, is professor of economics at Harvard University and founder of Equal Opportunity Ventures.
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