Welcome, Moses Shayo!

In memory of the renowned political and social scientist Karl W. Deutsch, WZB director from 1975 to 1987, the WZB annually awards a guest professorship in his name. For 2025, we welcome Moses Shayo (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), to the K.W. Deutsch Visiting Professorship at the WZB.

Moses Shayo studies the political economy of redistribution, nationalism, conflict, and international integration; the social and political implications of participation in financial markets; and consumer behavior. One of his major contributions to these areas has been analysing how and to what extent they are shaped by social identity. His work combines empirical studies of the determinants and implications of social identity, with a theoretical framework in which both identities and individual behavior are endogenously determined.

In his Karl W. Deutsch Lecture, Moses Shayo has presented the findings of a study conducted together with Inbal Dekel. In it, they examine how social learning and identity influence how people respond to others' behavior. Through three experiments in different cultures, they compare the effects of rational learning, conformity to group norms, differentiation from outsiders, and bias toward one's own group. The study shows how identity shapes both who people follow and who they resist, influencing polarization and information spread.

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