Economic and social theorists have modeled race and ethnicity as a form of personal identity produced in recognition of … the costliness of adopting and maintaining a specific identity. These models of racial and ethnic identity recognize that … model the choice as an extensive-form game, where whites choose to accept or reject a separate mulatto identity and mixed …

widely across localities, suggesting that social norms may be important. We formalize the ethnic identity choice in a simple … framework, which highlights the interaction of material benefits stemming from the ethnic policies, identity costs associated … with breaking the norms of following the father's ethnicity, and social reputations altering the importance of identity …