Social Connections and Cultural Heterogeneity

Jiabin Wu (jwu5@uoregon.edu)

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This paper proposes a cultural evolutionary model in which the assortativity level of matching is endogenously determined. We consider a population consisting of two cultural groups. Each group has a leader who can actively exert effort to enhance social connections among group members. Social connections increase the agents' probabilities of matching with one another among the same group in economic activities and thus increase the assortativity of matching in the population. We find that the endogenous process by which the assortativity level is determined can lead to cultural heterogeneity. While cultural homogeneity is the only prediction when the assortativity level is constant.

Keywords: Cultural evolution; social connections; cultural heterogeneity; assortative matching; evolutionary game theory. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C73 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-02-18
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul, nep-evo, nep-soc and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Social connections and cultural heterogeneity (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:69599

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