|
on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Francesco Agostinelli; Matthias Doepke; Giuseppe Sorrenti; Fabrizio Zilibotti |
| Abstract: | This chapter argues that parenting choices are a central force in the joint evolution of culture and economic outcomes. We present a framework in which parents - motivated by both their children’s future success and their own normative beliefs - choose parenting styles and transmit cultural traits responding to economic incentives. Values such as work ethic, patience, and religiosity are more likely to be instilled when their anticipated returns, economic or otherwise, are high. The interaction between parenting and economic conditions gives rise to endogenous cultural and economic stratification. We extend the model to include residential sorting and social interactions, showing how neighborhood choice reinforces disparities in trust and human capital. Empirical evidence from the World Values Survey supports the model’s key predictions. We conclude by highlighting open questions at the intersection of parenting, culture, and inequality. |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11936 |
| By: | Deckker, Dinesh; Sumanasekara, Subhashini |
| Abstract: | The number 13 is widely regarded as unlucky in many Western societies, yet its symbolic meaning varies significantly across global cultures. This superstition, known as triskaidekaphobia, raises questions about the interplay between myth, cognition, and cultural transmission. This study aimed to investigate the origins, evolution, and cross-cultural symbolism of the number 13, exploring how it has been constructed as a taboo or sacred number across different civilisations and religious systems. Adopting a qualitative narrative inquiry and comparative analysis approach, the study synthesised data from religious texts, mythologies, historical documents, scholarly literature, and architectural practices. Theoretical frameworks from symbolic anthropology, cognitive psychology, and sociology guided the interpretation of the data. Findings reveal that the fear of 13 is not universal but culturally contingent. In Christian and Norse traditions, it is associated with betrayal and cosmic disruption; in Ancient Egyptian, Hindu, and Maya cultures, it symbolises spiritual transformation and cosmic order. The modern institutionalisation of the taboo in Western architecture and media reflects the power of narrative and collective belief over objective reasoning. The number 13 functions as a symbolic threshold—its meaning derived from narrative structure, cultural boundaries, and cognitive heuristics. This study underscores the importance of viewing numeric taboos as culturally produced phenomena rather than inherent superstitions. |
| Date: | 2025–06–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:s3drq_v1 |
| By: | Marcello D'Amato (University of Naples Suor Orsola Benincasa, CSEF and CELPE.); Francesco Flaviano Russo (Università di Napoli Federico II and CSEF) |
| Abstract: | We show empirically that interstate conflicts are less likely among countries that share more of their oral tradition, as enshrined in the folktales. Popular tales and narratives are related to expectations and beliefs held about the other parties behavior: larger similarity in the systems of beliefs in the populations - cultural relatedness- reduces information frictions in dispute resolutions and negotiation failures between states. To validate this interpretation, we show that countries with more oral tradition in common are more likely to form military alliances, more likely to participate to the same international organizations, more likely to vote similarly in the UN general assembly, more likely to trade with each other and, in case a conflicts breaks out, more likely to terminate it with a negotiation. |
| Keywords: | Ethnic Culture; Narratives; Cultural distances, Interstate conflicts. |
| JEL: | F5 N4 Z1 |
| Date: | 2025–04–25 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sef:csefwp:749 |
| By: | John Komlos; Marek Brabec |
| Abstract: | We employ a generalized additive model with complexity-penalized splines to estimate the trend in BMI values of both adults and children, using data in the 18 cycles of the NHANES surveys. To ensure a consistent obesogenic environment across survey participants, we restrict the sample to U.S.-born individuals and emphasize birth-cohort effects rather than period effects, prevalent in the literature. This choice reflects the premise that an individual’s weight at any time is shaped by cumulative exposures beginning at birth. Birth cohorts are more likely to share comparable social, cultural, technological, and economic environments across the life course, unlike measurement cohorts. Our findings indicate that BMI values rose throughout the 20th century, albeit at varying rates. The annual rate of increase among those born in the 1920s was close to 0.1 unit but the trend decelerated during the Depression and war, reaching a trough in the 1940s or early 1950s. Black females are an exception to this generalization, since their BMI values continued to increase at 0.1 per annum rate throughout the first half of the century. Those born in the 1950s and 1960s experienced an acceleration of their BMI values, coinciding with the emergence of an increasingly obesogenic environment and decline in willpower, a latent variable that, to our knowledge, remains underexplored in the obesity literature. We also document the tapering of BMI values by the late 20th century and plateauing among children in the 21st century, consistent with the conjecture that the obesogenic environment may have reached a saturation point. |
| Keywords: | BMI, obesity, obesogenic, overweight, willpower, self-control, dopamine |
| JEL: | I1 N0 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11932 |