Research

Two related Op-Eds at Le Monde here and here.

Earlier version here.

Abstract: What repercussions does Islamist terrorism have for Arab/Muslim minorities in targeted countries? We highlight consequences in the domain of online real estate rental. Using high-frequency data on all transactions happening on the largest Parisian online rental market over the period of November 2014 to March 2018, we are able to trace the evolution of prices and occupancy rates over time. We demonstrate that discrimination against properties hosted by Arab/Muslims rises swiftly in the aftermath of the terror attacks in November 2015 and wanes at a much slower pace. We quantify the average financial loss per listing that results from increased discrimination to equal $178 per month. Our findings not only highlight the presence of discrimination in peer-to-peer transactions but also show how sharing economy data measuring these transactions can be used as a “seismograph” to track and measure the development of discriminatory attitudes in response to societal events.  

Citation: Wagner, S., & Petev, I. D. (2024). The Economic Penalty of Terrorism: Increase in Discrimination against Arabs and Muslims after Paris Attacks. Socius, 10. https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231241276343. 

Abstract: Generative AI is increasingly presented as a potential substitute for research subjects. Yet there is no scientific consensus on how closely these in-silico clones could represent their human counterparts. While some defend the use of these “synthetic users,” others point towards the biases in the responses provided by the LLMs. Through an experiment using survey questionnaires, we demonstrate that these latter critics are right to be wary of using generative AI to emulate respondents, but probably not for the right reason. Our results i) confirm that to date, the models cannot replace humans for opinion or attitudinal research; and ii) that they display a strong bias. Yet we also show that this bias is iii) both specific (their responses have a low dispersion) and not directly steered towards to any given social group, as is often assumed. We define the two competing theses, “representative” and “social bias” and demonstrate that the social properties of the groups that are sampled play a limited role in the overall error of the LLMs. We call “machine bias” the much larger part of the prediction error, and we attribute it to technical aspects of the current large language models rather than to their training data only.

Citation (MLA): Boelaert, Julien, et al. “Machine Bias. Generative Large Language Models Have a View of Their Own.” SocArXiv, 25 Apr. 2024. Web. 

Related Op-Eds & média: Le Monde, Horizons Publics, AOC, Polytechnique Insights

Abstract: À partir des données d’une enquête menée auprès d’un échantillon représentatif de la population française en 2017, ce livre analyse les dimensions sociales et politiques de la transition écologique. Il souligne la diffusion large mais inégale des préoccupations environnementales. Il montre que la prise de conscience des enjeux ne s’accompagne pas nécessairement de l’adoption de pratiques orientées vers la sobriété et la préservation de l’environnement. Quatre configurations idéal-typiques ressortent de cette articulation problématique des attitudes et des pratiques : « consumérisme assumé », « éco-consumérisme », « éco-cosmopolitisme » et « frugalité sans intention ». Cette typologie suggère la complexité des arbitrages associés aux politiques de la transition écologique, qui articulent des enjeux de justice sociale et d’efficacité environnementale. Ces arbitrages, qui mobilisent l’incitation ou la contrainte, n’opèrent pas de simples choix techniques. Ils s’inscrivent  dans le cadre des fractures sociales, économiques, culturelles et territoriales qui traversent la société française et mettent en jeu des intérêts divergents qui en illustrent la dimension proprement politique.

Citation (MLA): Coulangeon, Philippe, Yoann Démoli, Maël Ginsburger, et Ivaylo D. Petev. La conversion écologique des Français: contradictions et clivages. Presses universitaires de France, Paris: 2023.

Abstract: The environmental impact of contemporary lifestyles has come under increasing scrutiny. Recent evidence shows a considerable potential for individuals to intervene, their widespread willingness to do so but also sizeable barriers they face to reduce their environmental footprint. In this study we investigate whether pro-environmental attitudes can serve as potent drivers of individual actions with consequential environmental impact. Using a multi-level latent variable framework, we model the association between attitudes and a diverse range of environmentally significant actions and scale up the analysis to a cross-country setting using the 2017 wave of the Eurobarometer data. We find a moderate, positive association which holds beyond standard sociodemographic and country-level controls and exhibits a cumulative effect – higher attitudinal levels align with higher numbers of undertaken actions, including difficult, costly and high-impact ones. The observed levels of pro-environmental attitudes and actions are contingent on a country's economic affluence and individual socioeconomic status. This, we argue, is evidence of the limits of mitigation strategies which focus exclusively on attitudes-driven behavioral change without consideration for the influence of sociodemographic and country-level inequalities.

Citation (MLA): Petev, Ivaylo D., and Philippe Coulangeon. “Greening Lifestyles with Good Intentions: Cross-country Evidence on the Association Between Attitudes and Environmentally Significant Actions.” SocArXiv, 30 Aug. 2021. Web.

À propos de : David Reich, Who We Are and How We Got Here : Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past, Pantheon Books / Comment nous sommes devenus ce que nous sommes. La nouvelle histoire de nos origines, Quanto 

Résumé: En plein essor, la paléogénétique étudie la formation et le croisement des populations humaines jusqu’à cinq millions d’années dans le passé. Si elle permet de mieux connaître les origines de l’humanité, elle ne doit pas faire déprécier l’apport des archéologues, historiens, linguistes et anthropologues.

Pour citer cette article: Ivaylo D. Petev, « Paléogénétique de l’histoire humaine », La Vie des idées , 6 janvier 2020. ISSN : 2105-3030. URL : https://laviedesidees.fr/Paleogenetique-de-l-histoire-humaine.html 

Résumé: Dans quelle mesure la sensibilité écologique des individus se traduit par des actes et pourrait ainsi servir de levier pour diminuer l’empreinte écologique des ménages ? Afin de répondre à la question, nous utilisons la dernière vague de l’enquête sur les pratiques environnementales des ménages (Epem 2016, CGDD/SDES) pour analyser la relation entre attitudes et pratiques. Une association positive et intense serait ainsi un signe fort du potentiel d’intervention des individus. Nos résultats peinent toutefois à illustrer cette relation. D’une part, quand l’association est positive, elle reste modeste ; d’autre part, les attitudes pro-environnementales ne vont pas nécessairement de pair avec des pratiques ayant un impact positif et réel sur l’environnement. Contradictoires du point de vue de leur impact écologique, les rapports entre attitudes et pratiques le sont beaucoup moins lorsqu’elles sont appréhendées au regard du sexe, de l’âge et de la catégorie socioprofessionnelle. Nous verrons comment les différences de socialisation, combinées à des rapports particuliers à l’espace domestique et à la mobilité, permettent de rendre compte de cette association et de ses contradictions apparentes.

Citation (MLA): Petev, Ivaylo D. « Introduction to the Symposium on Atkinson's Inequality: What Can Be Done? », Revue française de sociologie, vol. vol. 58, no. 2, 2017, pp. 177-179. 

Abstract: In a context of heightened awareness of the dangers of climate change, the environmental impact of contemporary lifestyles has come under increasing scrutiny. Previous research has built solid evidence on the considerable potential individuals possess to intervene, their widespread willingness to do so but also the sizeable barriers they face to reduce their environmental footprint. In this study we investigate whether pro-environmental attitudes can serve as potent drivers of individual actions with consequential environmental impact. Bridging across work in several disciplines, we address directly the association between intent to act and a range of actions and scale up the analysis to a cross-country setting using European Union data and multilevel latent class models. We find a strong, positive association which holds beyond standard sociodemographic and country-level controls. We interpret the robustness of the intent-actions association as a positive signal on its likelihood to foster behavioral change with high environmental impact. A country's economic development and affluence affect the association whereas sociodemographic differences exhibit considerable variability on both intent and actions and are generally contingent on contextual factors. This, we argue, is evidence of the limits of mitigation strategies that focus exclusively on behavioral change without consideration of countrylevel characteristics. 

Abstract: Despite the burgeoning research on lifestyles, we have surprisingly little evidence to answer one of the literature’s founding questions: Is the association between social class and lifestyles disappearing? I explore this inquiry with data from the past four decades. In analyzing the class-lifestyle association, I examine changes in the variability of lifestyles within and between social classes. Using data from the General Social Survey on informal social ties and formal membership ties to voluntary associations, I derive proxies for lifestyles and examine their relation to social class with latent class models. Results show that social classes’ contemporary sociability patterns are substantively similar to traditional descriptions from empirical studies on analogous data from as early as the mid-twentieth century. The association between social classes and sociability patterns shows no sign of having weakened over the past four decades. In fact, recent trends of civic disengagement and social isolation in contemporary U.S. society, which these data corroborate, reinforce class differences in sociability. 

Citation (MLA):  Petev, Ivaylo D. “The Association of Social Class and Lifestyles: Persistence in American Sociability, 1974 to 2010.” American Sociological Review, vol. 78, no. 4, Aug. 2013, pp. 633–661, doi:10.1177/0003122413491963.

Résumé: Emblématique de la société de consommation et de production de masse, l'automobile connaît en France une diffusion qui, tant du point de vue de l'accès à la motorisation que de la distribution des différentes catégories de véhicules (marque, modèle, puissance, ancienneté et statut d'acquisition), fait apparaître des différences importantes entre les groupes sociaux. Entre ces derniers s'insinuent de nouveaux types de clivages (multi-motorisation, progression de la place des marques étrangères, notamment). L'analyse conjointe des habitudes de déplacements et des caractéristiques d'équipement automobile des ménages motorisés en 2008 met en évidence l'articulation d'effets propres aux contraintes de mobilité et aux habitudes de déplacement, qui n'entament pas toutefois la robustesse des écarts entre groupes sociaux. Le statut d'acquisition des véhicules apparaît comme un marqueur social soumis à un cycle de diffusion et de banalisation que révèle l'accès socialement différencié au marché du neuf et de l'occasion. Il se combine au type de véhicule. Les voitures allemandes, en particulier les plus puissantes, apparaissent ainsi comme un marqueur spécifique de l'appartenance aux classes supérieures, en particulier chez les indépendants. Ces écarts soulignent les éléments de compétition statutaire et symbolique qui continuent d'entourer l'acquisition et les usages de l'automobile.

Abstract: The automobile is a symbol of the consumer society and mass production, the spread of which in France reveals significant differences between social groups, both in terms of access to automobiles and distribution of different vehicle categories (make, model, power, age and acquisition status). New types of distinction are appearing between these groups (multi-car ownership and the progression of the share taken by foreign brands, in particular). Joint analysis of the travel habits and automobiles of car-owning households in 2008 highlights links between the specific effects of mobility constraints and travel habits, although these do not in any way make the gaps between social groups any less robust. Vehicle acquisition status appears to be a social status marker that is subject to a cycle of diffusion and normalisation revealed by the socially-differentiated access to the new and used vehicle markets. This combines with the type of vehicle. German cars, in particular the more powerful ones, are thus shown to be a specific marker of belonging to the higher classes, in particular among the self-employed. These differences underline the social status and symbolic competition issues that continue to surround the acquisition and uses of automobiles.

Key findings: • With the recession, disposable income first rose and then, starting in the third quarter of 2008, fell precipitously. The falloff in disposable income was delayed because government transfers to households increased by 18.6% from the last quarter of 2007 to the last quarter of 2009. • Unlike prior recessions, the Great Recession is characterized by a decline in all consumption components, including nondurables. The Great Recession is also noteworthy because, unlike the five prior recessions, consumption remained below the pre-recession level even 15 quarters after the start of the recession. • After the recession formally ended, the Index of Consumer Sentiment recovered sharply for the top income quartile, but not for the bottom income quartile. 

Citation: Petev, Ivaylo D., & Pistaferri, Luigi. 2012. Consumption in the Great Recession. Stanford, CA: Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality. 

Joined review of:  

• Tak Wing Chan (ed.): Social Status and Cultural Consumption. Cambridge, UK:  Cambridge University Press,  2010.  273 pp.

• Tony Bennett Mike Savage Elizabeth Silva Alan Warde Modesto Gayo-Cal and David Wright: Culture, Class, Distinction. New York, NY:  Routledge,  2009.  311 pp.

Citation: Ivaylo D. Petev, Omnivores Without Borders: Two Readings on Distinction in Contemporary Culture, European Sociological Review, Volume 27, Issue 4, August 2011, Pages 548–554, https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcq053 

Abstract: This dissertation consists of three stand-alone studies, which address a common problem in research on the social stratification of consumption: the empirically unsubstantiated theoretical discussion of trends on the topic. In response, the first study uses American data on different types of social ties to examine the evolution of the association between social class and lifestyles since the mid-1970s. It concludes that, contrary to much accepted wisdom, there is no evidence of decline in the association, and in fact, some evidence for its intensification due to well-documented recent trends of civic disengagement and isolation among Americans. The two other studies use historical data from France and the United States to explore the social stratification of a comprehensive list of spending practices. Both reach the same conclusions. First, the social structure of spending patterns resembles a multi-dimensional, homogeneous space, whose shape and stability challenge arguments associated with the relevant literature in economics as well as with sociological literature on class analysis and postmodernist theory. Second, spending practices are organized around classic forms of social distinction, whose grounding in material inequalities challenges arguments about the contemporary predominance of positional and cultural distinctions. Third, the observation of strong and persistent differences by occupation and education in spending patterns challenges arguments about the increasing importance of financial differences or alternatively about the irrelevance of traditional socio-demographic determinants to contemporary consumption. The overall conclusion of the dissertation project is that consumption practices are deeply embedded in the complex dynamics of contemporary institutions, whose postindustrial logic tends to reformulate rather than supplant industrial-era patterns of socio-economic inequality. 

Citation: Petev, Ivaylo Dimitrov. 2011. Essays on the social stratification of consumption in postwar United States and France. http://purl.stanford.edu/td357bn3585.