One of the more interesting results to emerge from the field of behavioral economics over the past few decades is something called the “endowment effect”: people often over-value something which they already have relative to other options available. (For example, if I randomly give half of a group a free gift and then ask the half which I gave the gift how much they would be willing to sell the gift for and the other half how much they would be willing to purchase the gift for, the “sell” prices will usually be much higher than the “buy” prices.)
In my opinion, nowhere is the endowment effect stronger than in the debate over national borders. I’ve never heard someone from the North of the US say, “it’s too bad that the South wasn’t allowed to secede. We would have avoided the cost of the Civil War and wouldn’t be stuck with all those rabid Bush fans during election time.” For Americans, there is something sacrosanct about the current borders of our country and any attempt to imagine an alternate history in which there are not one, but many USAs, seems unpatriotic. Likewise, I’ve never heard an Indian say “It’s too bad a few of the princely states didn’t remain independent. India is simply too big to govern.”
I’ve just returned to a trip to Kashmir so the topic of national borders has been on my mind. I don’t know enough about Kashmir to have a solid opinion, but when I read things like this, it definitely seems like there is clear case of irrationality.
5 comments:
It's interesting that Pakistan also overvalues Kashmir, though they don't own it, so I'd say this is more about national leaders overvaluing land in general. After all, both countries wanted Kashmir very much after independence despite not "owning" it for any length of time.
Generally, just about every nation-state has been willing to pay extraordinary amounts of money for territory (China and Tibet, Israel, the Germans, etc). Some of this is signaling--if I give in here, they'll keep taking more and more--but it's hard to imagine that the scale and duration of wars over territory makes much sense from a national interest point of view.
On Kashmir, there is a book " Kashmir behind the vale by MJ Akbar".
It offers a glance into "Kashmiriyat" and discusses the Kashmir problem .
It discusses on how different ideological perspectives of nations India & Pakistan shaped the future of Kashmir
Also, you suggest that the endowment effect may be a pervasive. A number of studies have called this result into question, finding less evidence of the endowment effect among experienced market actors:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118750130/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/00335530360535144
Dear Doug, May God bless you with guidance. I would like to thank you for highlighting the truth. Kashmiris are the innocent victims of Indian occupation. Thousands of Kashmiris have been killed by Indian forces in cold blood and I am witness to many.This resulted in more and more kashmiris taking up arms against Indian occupation.Kashmiris are helpless, weak and oppressed. We can only pray to God.....ajaztam@hotmail.com
Stop fighting with Indian soldier. I assure you that no body will be killed. By the way who is providing arms to you? and who make you belive that it is an indian occupation? India is protecting its borders, If you have coughtup somwhere in between you are an alien. I hope you got it.
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