Obedience in the Labor Market and Social Mobility: A Socio-Economic Approach

Daron Acemoglu

No 29125, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper presents an analysis of what types of values, especially in regards to obedience vs. independence, families impart to their children and how these values interact with social mobility. In the model, obedience is a useful characteristic for employers, especially when wages are low, because independent workers require more incentives (when wages are high, these incentives are automatic). Hence, in low-wage environments, low-income families will impart values of obedience to their children to prevent disadvantaging them in the labor market. To the extent that independence is useful for entrepreneurial activities, this then depresses their social mobility. High-income and privileged parents, on the other hand, always impart values of independence, since they expect that their children can enter into higher-income entrepreneurial (or managerial) activities thanks to their family resources and privileges. I also discuss how political activity can be hampered when labor market incentives encourage greater obedience and how this can generate multiple steady states with different patterns of social hierarchy and mobility.

JEL-codes: A13 J31 J62 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-isf and nep-lma
Note: PE
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published as Daron Acemoglu, 2022. "Obedience in the Labour Market and Social Mobility: A Socioeconomic Approach," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(S1), pages 2-37, June.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w29125.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Obedience in the Labour Market and Social Mobility: A Socioeconomic Approach (2022)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29125

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w29125

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().