Modelling Bordieu: An extension of the Axelrod Cultural Diffusion Model

Andrew Trigg (), Andrew Bertie and Sue Himmelweit ()
Additional contact information
Andrew Trigg: Department of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences, The Open University
Andrew Bertie: The Open University
Sue Himmelweit: Department of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences, The Open University

No 68, Open Discussion Papers in Economics from The Open University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Economics

Abstract: The contribution to the social theory of consumption of the late Pierre Bourdieu has been widely recognized, but not fully absorbed by the economics discipline. To address this lacuna, an agent-based model of Bourdieu's social theory is developed by extending Axelrod's cultural diffusion model. Bourdieu's theory is decomposed into two components: a capital effect on social interaction and an innovation effect. Whereas simulations of the capital effect are found to have a key role in the reproduction of economic inequality, by comparing survey and simulation results the innovation effect is shown to provide an insight into how cultural capital is distributed.

Keywords: Bordieu; habitus; cultural capital; Axelrod; inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C0 D3 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 52 pages
Date: 2008-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
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:opn:wpaper:68

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Open Discussion Papers in Economics from The Open University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by IT team member ().