The Law and Economics of Identity
The Law and Economics of Identity
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身份的法律和经济学
DOI：
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发表时间：
2007
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影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Rafael Gely
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文献类型：
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作者：
Rafael Gely
一、导论：越来越多的法律学者撰写了关于社会和特定雇主要求非传统员工履行其身份的要求，(1)通过遵守该机构所重视的标准，“或使自己变得令雇主满意”。(2)这些作者有力地提出，其中一些要求实际上是阶级从属的一种形式；作为回应，他们主张采取各种形式的法律干预。(3)吉野健二为将这种情况概念化提供了一个特别有用的方案。一种极端的情况是，雇主要求员工实际上“转换”或改变他们的身份。(4)要求员工改变宗教信仰就是这种极端做法的一个例子，根据现行法律，这种做法显然是非法的。(5)另一种极端的做法是，雇主要求雇员“掩盖”自己的身份。(6)“掩饰”是指要求个人淡化其身份中不受欢迎的特征，这些特征会让受青睐的群体感到不舒服，即使该群体仍然充分意识到潜在的身份认同。(7)这些做法没有被发现是非法的，对于是否应该谴责对雇员身份的这种要求，学者们存在分歧。在这两个极端之间，吉野观察到了两种中间情况：通过(假装一个人是优先群体的成员，尽管潜在的身份保持不变)和反向覆盖(执行一个人的身份认同，以符合优先群体持有的刻板印象)。(8)吉野确定的回应类型表明，雇员和雇主都在不断地就身份问题进行谈判(9)，身份是雇佣关系的重要组成部分。然而，劳动经济学家历来对身份的概念保持沉默。(注10)在最近的一系列文章中，诺贝尔经济学奖得主乔治·阿克洛夫教授和他的同事雷切尔·克兰顿填补了这一空白。(11)借用社会学和心理学领域的概念，阿克洛夫和克兰顿展示了身份如何影响个人和组织的行为。(13)本文探讨了阿克洛夫和克兰顿的概念模型对各种法律问题的洞察力，这些法律问题开始出现，因为法院正在努力解决围绕打扮和着装规范歧视的问题。(14)II.阿克洛夫和克兰顿模型在传统的新古典经济模型中，个人的偏好既是固定的(15)，又取决于收入和努力等金钱因素。(16)因此，在一个非常简单的层面上，对工作决定的建模被描述为在工作和休闲之间做出选择。按照这种方式，人们可以将影响选择工作的一组因素分为三组：(1)工作的机会成本(即休闲)；(2)个人的财富水平；(3)个人的偏好。在这种基本模式下，个人的偏好被认为是给定的，不会立即改变。休闲的机会成本与工资率成正比，而财富的衡量是个人收入的函数。传统模式中没有提到身份。(17)阿克洛夫和克兰顿首先将同一性纳入个人的效用。(18)他们不仅将身份定义为经济学家传统上所说的“品味”，而且还将其定义为“规范”--“人们认为自己和他人应该如何行为。”(19)社会规范本质上是“社会规则”或在社会中被广泛采用的行为。正如劳伦斯·莱西格教授指出的那样，社会规范“对种族主义者的笑话不屑一顾；他们告诉陌生人在高速公路上给服务员小费；他们不确定男人是否应该为女人开门。”…
I. INTRODUCTION A growing number of legal scholars have written about the demands that society and particular employers have placed on non-traditional employees to perform their identities, (1) "or make themselves palatable" to their employers, by comporting with the criteria that the institution values. (2) These authors have forcefully made the argument that some of these requirements are actually a form of class subordination; as a response, they argue for various forms of legal intervention. (3) Kenji Yoshino provides a particularly useful scheme for conceptualizing this situation. At one extreme are situations where employers ask employees to actually "convert" or alter their identities. (4) A requirement that employees change their religion is an example of such an extreme practice, and under existing law, such a practice would be deemed clearly illegal. (5) At the other extreme, there are practices such as demands by an employer that employees "cover" their identities. (6) "Covering" is the demand for an individual to play down those disfavored characteristics of her identity which make the favored group uncomfortable, even while the group remains fully aware of that underlying identity. (7) These practices have not been found to be illegal, and there is disagreement among scholars as to whether there should be any condemnation for such demands on employees with regard to their identities. In between these two extremes, Yoshino observes two intermediate cases: passing (pretending that one is a member of the favored group, even though the underlying identity remains unchanged) and reverse covering (performing one's identity to conform to a stereotype held by the favored group). (8) The types of responses that Yoshino identifies suggest both that employees and employers alike are constantly negotiating issues of identity (9) and that identity is an important part of the employment relationship. Yet, labor economists have been traditionally silent about the concept of identity. (10) In a series of recent articles, Nobel Prize-winning economist Professor George Akerlof and his colleague, Rachel Kranton, fill this gap. (11) Borrowing constructs from the fields of sociology and psychology, Akerlof and Kranton demonstrate how identity influences the behavior of both individuals (12) and organizations. (13) This Essay explores the insights that Akerlof and Kranton's conceptual model has for the various legal issues that are beginning to arise as courts struggle with questions surrounding grooming and dress-code discrimination. (14) II. THE AKERLOF AND KRANTON MODEL In the traditional neoclassical economic model, the preferences of an individual are both fixed (15) and dependent upon pecuniary factors such as income and effort. (16) So at a very simple level, the modeling of the decision to work is characterized as a choice between work and leisure. Characterized in that way, one could then divide into three groups the set of factors affecting the choice to work: (1) the opportunity cost of the work (i.e., leisure); (2) the individual's level of wealth, and (3) the individual's set of preferences. Under this basic model, the individual's preferences are taken as given and are not subject to immediate change. The opportunity cost of leisure is directly proportional to the wage rate, and the measure of wealth is a function of the individual's income. Absent from the traditional model is any mention of identity. (17) Akerlof and Kranton start by including identity in the individual's utility. (18) They define identity not only as what economists traditionally refer to as "tastes" but also as "norms"--"how people think that they and others should behave." (19) Social norms are, in essence, "social regularities" or behaviors that are widely adopted in society. (20) They are activities that "society holds that people should do." (21) As Professor Lawrence Lessig notes, social norms "frown on the racist's joke; they tell the stranger to tip a waiter at a highway diner; they are unsure about whether a man should hold a door open for a woman. …