Incompatible European Partners? Cultural Predispositions and Household Financial Behavior

Michael Haliassos, Thomas Jansson () and Yigitcan Karabulut ()
Additional contact information
Thomas Jansson: Sveriges Riksbank, SE-103 37 Stockholm, Sweden
Yigitcan Karabulut: CEPR and Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, 3062 PA Rotterdam, Netherlands

Management Science, 2017, vol. 63, issue 11, 3780-3808

Abstract: The recent influx of migrants and refugees into Europe and elsewhere raises questions as to whether migrant behavior reflects cultural predispositions and whether assimilation through exposure to host institutions can be expected. The paper focuses on financial behavior and uses high-quality administrative data on migrants and refugees to Sweden. It uncovers differences across cultural groups in how behavior relates to household characteristics, and shows that differences diminish with exposure to host country institutions, even for large cultural distances. Interestingly, robust cultural classification of European countries based on genetic distance or on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions fails to identify a single “southern” culture but points to a “northern” culture. Our results also have implications for the potential of European institutional harmonization, exogenously imposed during the fiscal crisis, to alleviate cultural differences in financial behavior.

Keywords: household portfolios; household finance; culture and economic behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (32)

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https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2016.2538 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Incompatible European Partners? Cultural Predispositions and Household Financial Behavior (2015)
Working Paper: Incompatible European partners? Cultural predispositions and household financial behavior (2015)
Working Paper: Incompatible European Partners? Cultural Predispositions and Household Financial Behavior (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:63:y:2017:i:11:p:3780-3808

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