The Persistence of Inferior Cultural-Institutional Conventions

Marianna Belloc and Samuel Bowles

American Economic Review, 2013, vol. 103, issue 3, 93-98

Abstract: Our theory of cultural-institutional persistence and innovation is based on uncoordinated updating of individual social norms and contracts, so that both culture and institutions co-evolve. We explain why Pareto-dominated cultural-institutional configurations may persist over long periods and how transitions nonetheless occur. In our model the exercise of elite power plays no role in either persistence or innovation, and transitions occur endogenously. This is unlike models in which elites impose inferior institutions or cultures as a self-interested distributional strategy. We show that persistence will be greater the more inferior is the Pareto-dominated configuration and the more rational and individualistic is the population.

JEL-codes: D02 O17 O43 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.103.3.93
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (45)

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Working Paper: The persistence of inferior cultural-institutional conventions (2012)
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