Working Paper: NBER ID: w16512
Authors: Alberto Bisin; Thierry Verdier
Abstract: Cultural transmission arguably plays an important role in the determination of many fundamental preference traits (e.g., discounting, risk aversion and altruism) and most cultural traits, social norms, and ideological tenets ( e.g., attitudes towards family and fertility practices, and attitudes in the job market). It is, however, the pervasive evidence of the resilience of ethnic and religious traits across generations that motivates a large fraction of the theoretical and empirical literature on cultural transmission. This article reviews the main contributions of models of cultural transmission, from theoretical and empirical perspectives. It presents their implications regarding the long-run population dynamics of cultural traits and cultural heterogeneity, the world's geographical fragmentation by ethic and religious traits, at any given time. Finally, the paper reviews the empirical literature which estimates various properties of cultural transmission mechanisms as well as the population dynamics of specific traits.
Keywords: Cultural Transmission; Socialization; Ethnic Traits; Religious Traits
JEL Codes: Z1
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| parental cultural traits (Z13) | parental socialization choices (P36) |
| parental socialization choices (P36) | children's cultural identities (Z10) |
| parental cultural traits (Z13) | children's cultural identities (Z10) |
| higher costs of socialization (Z13) | likelihood of assimilation into dominant cultures (Z13) |
| parental socialization choices (P36) | cultural diversity (Z10) |
| imperfect empathy (D91) | parental socialization choices (P36) |