Cultural Transmission, Discrimination and Peer Effects

Maria Saez-Marti and Yves Zenou

No 2011:3, Research Papers in Economics from Stockholm University, Department of Economics

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 on the trait and the social environment where children live. We show that, if a high enough proportion of employers have taste-based prejudices against minority workers, their prejudices are always self-fulfilled in steady state. Affirmative Action improves the welfare of minorities whereas integration is beneficial to minority workers but detrimental to workers from the majority group. If Affirmative Action quotas are high enough or integration is strong enough, employers’ negative stereotypes cannot be sustained in steady-state.

Keywords: Ghetto culture; overlapping generations; rational expectations; multiple equilibria; peer effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J15 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2011-01-24
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge, nep-evo, nep-lab, nep-mig, nep-soc and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:sunrpe:2011_0003

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