Does Culture Affect Unemployment? Evidence from the Röstigraben

Zweimüller, Josef, Rafael Lalive and Brügger, Beatrix
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Josef Zweimüller () and Beatrix Eugster

No 7405, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: This paper studies the role of culture in shaping unemployment outcomes. The empirical analysis is based on local comparisons across a language barrier in Switzerland. This Röstigraben seperates cultural groups, but neither labor markets nor political jurisdictions. Local contrasts across the language border identify the role of culture for unemployment. Our findings indicate that differences in culture explain differences in unemployment duration on the order of 20 %. Moreover, we find that horizontal transmission of culture is more important than vertical transmission of culture and that culture is about as important as strong changes to the benefit duration.

Keywords: Culture; Cultural transmission; Unemployment duration; Regional unemployment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J21 J64 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul, nep-lab, nep-soc and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

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