Peers and Culture

Maria Saez-Marti and Anna Sj�gren
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Anna Sjögren

No 349, IEW - Working Papers from Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich

Abstract: We analyze the evolution of culture when parents socialize children to the cultural variants that maximize child lifetime utility. Parents invest in cultural transmission taking into account that children are also influenced by peers. We model the influence of peers by assuming that children observe different cultural variants in their peer group, assign merit to them and adopt one variant, following a probabilistic adoption rule. We show that cultural diversity is sustainable even if all parents strive to transmit the same variant. We also show that a parental demand for cultural pluralism does not guarantee cultural diversity.

Keywords: Cultural transmission; cultural diversity; peer groups; oblique transmission. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 I20 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul, nep-soc and nep-ure
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/52303/1/iewwp349.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Peers and Culture* (2008)
Working Paper: Peers and Culture (2005)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zur:iewwpx:349

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