1,721,133 research outputs found
The economics of cultural transmission and the dynamics of preferences
No full textThis paper studies the population dynamics of preference traits in a model of intergenerational cultural transmission. Parents socialize and transmit their preferences to their offspring, motivated by a form of paternalistic altruism ("imperfect empathy"). In such a setting we study the long run stationary state pattern of preferences in the population, according to various socialization mechanisms and institutions, and identify sufficient conditions for the global stability of an heterogenous stationary distribution of the preference traits. We show that cultural transmission mechanisms have very different implications than evolutionary selection mechanisms with respect to the dynamics of the distribution of the traits in the population, and we study mechanisms which interact evolutionary selection and cultural transmission
Public policies and dynamics of cultural values in the welfare state
No full textThis paper analyzes the dynamics of the distribution of a population of some of the cultural traits and norms which might be associated to the support for Welfare State as a system for the provision of public goods and as a redistributive mechanism. Cultural traits and norms are acquired through a process of intergenerational cultural transmission and socialization. we emphasize the existence of a two-way causality between the evolution of cultural traits and norms and the political outcomes, which possibly generates, in the Welfare State, multiple self-fulfilling equilibrium paths of cultural evolution, public provision of goods and redistribution.Ideologies related to the public provision of particular goods can be rationalized as coordination mechanisms allowing cultural groups to preserve or shift political power in favor of particular long run profiles of cultural traits and norms
Competitive Markets for Non-Exclusive Contracts with Adverse Selection: The Role of Entry Fees
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Capital structure and hedging demand with incomplete markets
Full text linkWe develop a general equilibrium model with production and incomplete markets. Firms optimally design their capital structure to cater to investors’ hedging needs. Depending on the heterogeneity of such needs, equilibrium may feature either complete financial market segmentation or only partial segmentation. Firms respond to greater hedging needs by issuing more debt and allocating most of the proceeds to shareholders. How much more debt, depends on the availability of competing risksharing instruments. When the capital structure is jointly shaped by hedging demand and agency (asset substitution), the greater risk induced by asymmetric information
has countervailing effects on debt: Debt is reduced to nudge shareholders into choosing lower risk; however, the greater risk in production affects the state prices and calls for more debt
Religious intermarriage and socialization in the US
No full textThis paper presents an empirical analysis of a choice-theoretic model of cultural transmission. In particular, we use data from the General Social Survey to estimate the structural parameters of a model of marriage and child socialization along religious lines in the United States. The observed intermarriage and socialization rates are consistent with Protestants, Catholics, and Jews having a strong preference for children who identify with their own religious beliefs and making costly decisions to influence their children's religious beliefs. Our estimates imply dynamics of the shares of religious traits in the population that are in sharp contrast with the predictions obtained by linear extrapolations from current intermarriage rates
Agents with imperfect empathy may survive natural selection
No full textCultural transmission mechanisms which favor the direct transmission of the parents’ traits to their children may be adaptive to natural selection when opposed to mechanisms in which the parents choose for the offspring the highest fitness at any time
Time-consistent immigration policy under economic and cultural externalities
Full text linkDiscussions of immigration policy are typically framed in the context of their economic effects in receiving countries, notably labor market and fiscal effects. In this paper we characterize immigration policy in a richer model where migrants are also a source of cultural externalities stemming from either preferences or the functioning of formal and informal institutions in receiving countries. While in terms of pure economic effects immigrants do not generally have any more incentives than low-skilled natives to allow for more immigration in the future, this is not the case when accounting for cultural externalities. Therefore, insofar as past immigrants have a voice in affecting future policies, a time-consistent immigration policy entails back-loading, as natives attempt at limiting voice of immigrants in the future, the economic effects of immigration flows as well as the cultural externality they introduce. Furthermore, natives exploit any precommitment device to limit immigration flows, e.g., building ``walls'', limiting immigrants' political rights, or accumulating fiscal surpluses
Cooperation as a transmitted cultural trait
No full textIn this paper, we study an endogenous cultural selection mechanism for cooperative behavior in a setting where agents are randomly matched in a one-shot interaction Prisoner’s Dilemma, and may or may not have complete information about their opponent’s preferences. We focus on an endogenous socialization mechanism in which parents spend costly effort to transmit directly their trait to their offspring, taking into account the impact of (oblique) societal pressures on cultural transmission. For various ranges of parameter values, this mechanism generates a polymorphic population with a long-run presence of cooperative agents, even where replicator and indirect evolutionary mechanisms would bring about a monomorphic population with non-cooperation. Further, under some circumstances, the long-run fraction of cooperative agents is shown to be larger under incomplete than complete information
Markets and contracts
Full text linkEconomies with asymmetric information are encompassed by an extension of the model of general competitive equilibrium that does not require an explicit modeling of private information. Sellers have discretion over deliveries on contracts; this is in common with economies with default, incomplete contracts or price rigidities. Competitive, anonymous markets are viable. For a generic economy, there exist a Pareto improving intervention via linear, anonymous taxes
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