Culture: Persistence and Evolution

Francesco Giavazzi, Ivan Petkov and Fabio Schiantarelli
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Francesco Giavazzi: Bocconi University

No 853, Boston College Working Papers in Economics from Boston College Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper presents evidence on the speed of evolution (or lack thereof) of a wide range of values and beliefs of different generations of European immigrants to the US. The main result is that persistence differs greatly across cultural attitudes. Some, for instance deep personal religious values, some fam-ily and moral values, and political orientation are very persistent. Other, such as attitudes toward cooperation, redistribution, effort, children independence, premarital sex, and even the frequency of religious practice or the intensity of association with one’s religion, converge rather quickly. Moreover, the results obtained studying higher generation immigrants differ greatly from those obtained limiting the analysis to the second generation, and imply lesser degree of persistence. Finally, we show that persistence is ”culture specific” in the sense that the country from which one’s ancestors came matters for the pattern of generational convergence.

Keywords: Culture; Values; Beliefs; Transmission; Persistence; Evolution; Immigrants; Integration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 F22 J00 J61 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-03-18, Revised 2019-02-28
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul, nep-evo, nep-gro, nep-his and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (83)

Forthcoming, Journal of Economic Growth

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Related works:
Journal Article: Culture: persistence and evolution (2019)
Working Paper: Culture: Persistence and Evolution (2014)
Working Paper: Culture: Persistence and Evolution (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:boc:bocoec:853

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