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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Cheung, Man-Wah; WU, JIABIN |
| Abstract: | This paper generalizes the discrete cultural transmission model proposed by Bisin and Verdier (2001) to continuous trait space. The resulting cultural evolutionary dynamic can be characterized by a continuous imitative dynamic in a population game in which a player's payoff is equal to the aggregate cultural intolerance he has towards other agents. We show that cultural heterogeneity is always preserved. In addition, we model each agent's cultural intolerance towards another agent as an increasing function of cultural distance --- the distance between that other agent's trait and his own trait in the trait space. This captures people's general tendencies of evaluating culturally more distant people with stronger biases, and it is most easily modeled on a continuous trait space. We find that the curvature of the cultural intolerance function plays an important role in determining the long-run cultural phenomena. In particular, when cultural intolerance is a convex function of cultural distance, only the most extremely polarized state is a stable limit point. |
| Keywords: | Cultural transmission, Continuous trait space, Cultural evolution, Imitative Dynamic, Polarization |
| JEL: | A14 C72 C73 D10 Z13 |
| Date: | 2016–03–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:69934&r=evo |
| By: | Stelios Michalopoulos; Louis Putterman; David N. Weil |
| Abstract: | We explore the role of an individual’s historical lineage in determining economic status, holding constant his or her current location. This is complementary to the more common approach to studying how history shapes economic outcomes across locations. Motivated by a large literature in social sciences stressing the beneficial influence of agricultural transition on contemporary economic performance at the level of countries, we examine the relative status of descendants of agriculturalists vs. pastoralists. We match individual-level survey data with information on the historical lifeways of ancestors, focusing on Africa, where the transition away from such modes of production began only recently. Within enumeration areas and occupational groups, we find that individuals from ethnicities that derived a larger share of subsistence from agriculture in the pre-colonial era are today more educated and wealthy. A tentative exploration of channels suggests that differences in attitudes and beliefs as well as differential treatment by others, including less political power, may contribute to these divergent outcomes. |
| JEL: | O0 O1 O13 O40 Z00 Z1 |
| Date: | 2016–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21907&r=evo |
| By: | Choy, James P. (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | I construct a model of religion as an institution that provides community enforcement of contracts within families. Family altruism implies that family members cannot commit to reporting broken contracts to the community, so the community must monitor contract performance as well as in icting punishment. The community has less information than family members, and so community monitoring is ine cient. I provide evidence from a study of Amish institutions, including qualitative evidence from sociological accounts and quantitative evidence from a novel dataset covering nearly the entire Amish population of Holmes county, Ohio. I nd that 1) Amish households are not unitary, 2) the Amish community helps to support families by in icting punishments on wayward family members, 3) without the community Amish people have di culty committing to punishing family members, and 4) Amish community membership strengthens family ties, while otherwise similar religious communities in which there is less need for exchange between family members have rules that weaken family ties. My model has implications for understanding selection into religious practice and the persistence of culture. |
| Keywords: | Cultural Economics, Non-market Production, Public Goods, Religion JEL Classification: D13, H4, Z10, Z12 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:267&r=evo |
| By: | Delis, Manthos D.; Gaganis, Chrysovalantis; Hasan, Iftekhar; Pasiouras, Fotios |
| Abstract: | We link genetic diversity in the country of origin of the firms’ board members with corporate performance via board members’ nationality. We hypothesize that our approach captures deep-rooted differences in cultural, institutional, social, psychological, physiological, and other traits that cannot be captured by other recently measured indices of diversity. Using a panel of firms listed in the North American and U.K. stock markets, we find that adding board directors from countries with different levels of genetic diversity (either higher or lower) increases firm performance. This effect prevails when we control for a number of cultural, institutional, firm-level, and board member characteristics, as well as for the nationality of the board of directors. To identify the relationship, we use as instrumental variables for our diversity indices the migratory distance from East Africa and the level of ultraviolet exposure in the directors’ country of nationality. |
| Keywords: | genetic diversity, corporate performance, nationality of board members |
| Date: | 2015–08–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bof:bofrdp:urn:nbn:fi:bof-201508181353&r=evo |
| By: | Strulik, Holger |
| Abstract: | In this paper I consider how individuals allocate their time between church attendance (and other religious activities) and secular leisure activities. Moreover individuals use a cognitive style, which is either intuitive-believing or reflective-analytical. I assume that the full benefit from religious activities is achieved by intuitive believers. The model predicts that, ceteris paribus, wealthier individuals and individuals with higher cognitive ability are more likely to abandon the intuitive-believing cognitive style. They may continue to attend church but do so less frequently than intuitive believers. In general equilibrium, there exists a locally stable steady state where believing and frequent church attendance is widespread across the social strata. A sufficiently large negative shock (e.g. the Enlightenment, repeal of Sunday shopping laws), however, initiates the gradual secularization of society. |
| Keywords: | religiosity,church attendance,cognitive style,consumerism,fuzzy fidelity |
| JEL: | N30 D11 Z12 Z13 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cegedp:273&r=evo |