Cultural transmission and discrimination

Maria Saez-Marti and Yves Zenou

Journal of Urban Economics, 2012, vol. 72, issue 2, 137-146

Abstract: Workers can have good or bad work habits. These traits are transmitted from one generation to the next through a learning and imitation process, which depends on parents’ investment in the trait and the social environment where children live. If a sufficiently high proportion of employers have taste-based prejudices against minority workers, we show that their prejudices are always self-fulfilled in steady state and minority workers end up having, on average, worse work habits than majority workers. This leads to a ghetto culture. Affirmative Action can improve the welfare of minorities whereas integration can be beneficial to minority workers but detrimental to workers from the majority group.

Keywords: Ghetto culture; Overlapping generations; Rational expectations; Multiple equilibria; Peer effects; Neighborhood effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J15 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (40)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Cultural Transmission and Discrimination (2010)
Working Paper: Cultural Transmission and Discrimination (2005)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:juecon:v:72:y:2012:i:2:p:137-146

DOI: 10.1016/j.jue.2012.04.005

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