Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP5674
Authors: Anneclia Disdier; Keith Head; Thierry Mayer
Abstract: Free trade in audio-visual services has faced opposition on the grounds that foreign media undermine domestic culture, and ultimately, global diversity. We assess the media-culture link using name frequencies as a measure of tastes. Using a 47-year panel of French birth registries, we first show that names appearing on television shows, movies, or in songs are about five times more popular than other names. Most, but not all, of this relationship arises from endogeneity: song and script writers, as well as performers and their parents, select names that would be popular anyways. Using name attributes, fixed effects, and lagged popularity as controls, our regression results suggest that media affect choices by informing parents of unfamiliar names.
Keywords: cinema; cultural transmission; endogenous tastes; popular music; television
JEL Codes: D19; F15; Z10
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| media exposure (L82) | naming choices (G11) |
| media exposure (L82) | popularity of media names (L82) |
| unfamiliar names introduced through media (Y50) | likelihood of adoption by parents (J13) |
| foreign media (L82) | influence on naming patterns (J12) |
| name attributes (Y70) | magnitude of media effect (C91) |