|
on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Skerdilajda Zanaj (DEM, Université du Luxembourg); Anastasia Litina (University of Macedonia); Emma Thill (DEM, Université du Luxembourg) |
| Abstract: | "Culture shapes economic and social life, yet some traits erode quickly, while others persist across generations. Migrant experiences towards Europe or the United States illustrate this puzzle. In addition, some traits, such as fertility norms, tend to converge relatively quickly, whereas others, such as religiosity, exhibit substantially greater persistence. We develop a dynamic model of cultural transmission that endogenizes both cross-cultural group interaction and parental influence on cultural openness defined as a parentally transmitted willingness to adopt a new cultural trait when beneficial. Parents first shape cultural transmission by choosing their children’s openness to alternative traits. As young adults, individuals then decide how much to interact with other groups and, conditional on interaction, whether to switch traits. This endogenizes peer exposure and makes cultural change a deliberate choice. Within a generation, a higher group-level propensity to switch reduces group size, while tighter norms can expand or shrink a group depending on the relative utility of its trait. Across generations, parental investments in openness generate three long-run equilibria: convergence to a single trait, coexistence with interaction, or segregation without interaction. By jointly modeling parental transmission and peer-driven switching, we show that cultural persistence or change reflects purposeful micro-level decisions." |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:luc:wpaper:25-20 |
| By: | Clark, Gregory; Cummins, Neil |
| Abstract: | What happens across generations to random wealth shocks? Do they endure and even magnify, or do they dissipate? By implication, how much of modern wealth is attributable to events before 1900? This paper uses random shocks to family size in England before 1880, that created wealth shocks for the children, to measure the persistence of random wealth shocks. Fertility for married couples in England before 1880 was not controlled but was a biological lottery. And for richer families, family size strongly influenced child wealth. This paper finds that such biology induced wealth shocks had no impact on descendent wealth by three generations later. Since wealth itself persisted strongly across more than five generations this implies that, in the long run, wealth mainly derives from sources other than wealth inheritance itself. The observed link between nineteenth century wealth and modern wealth does not lie in wealth transmission itself. Instead, wealth persisted because of the inheritance within families of behaviours and abilities associated with wealth accumulation and wealth retention. |
| JEL: | D31 N33 N34 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:129982 |
| By: | Xue, Melanie |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces a structured approach for using genealogical records from FamilySearch to study Chinese historical demography. As a proof of concept, we focus on over 190, 000 digitized records from a single surname, drawn from many provinces and spanning multiple centuries. These lineage-based microdata include individual-level birth, death, and kinship information, which we clean, validate, and geocode using consistent rules and standardized place names. We begin by documenting descriptive patterns in population growth, sex ratios, and migration. Migration was overwhelmingly local, with longdistance moves rare and concentrated in a small number of lineages. Outmigration rose to a high point between 1750 and 1850 and then declined in later cohorts and generations. We then use the genealogical data to test specific hypotheses. Male-biased sex ratios—likely influenced by female infanticide—are strongly associated with higher rates of male childlessness. Migration rates fall sharply with patrilineal generational depth, offering micro-level evidence that clans became more sedentary over time. Together, these findings show how genealogical records can be used to reconstruct long-run demographic patterns and to assess social processes such as kinship, mobility, and reproductive exclusion. The approach is replicable and extensible to other surnames and regions as data coverage improves. |
| Keywords: | crowd-surfed genealogies; historical demography; China |
| JEL: | J11 J13 N10 N35 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:wpaper:129939 |
| By: | Emily Breza; Supreet Kaur |
| Abstract: | We outline a research agenda for behavioral development economics that seeks to understand the role of psychological channels in: (i) impeding individuals' ability to climb out of poverty, and (ii) shaping the organization of production, functioning of markets, and role of informal institutions in developing countries. We apply a missing markets lens to rationalize why tools, products and services that help individuals overcome their biases will be under-supplied by the market and why behavioral biases can have large impacts in steady state, even among highly experienced agents. We argue that these biases are especially likely to matter for the field of development because core features of poverty---proximity to subsistence, high volatility, market failures, weak formal institutions, and reliance on social ties---amplify the impact of psychological constraints. We organize our review around a core set of psychological constructs: self-control, cognitive constraints, self-beliefs, mental health, and social norms. For each construct, we highlight places where there is only a proof of concept versus evidence of meaningful impacts, and the resultant implications for future research. We also highlight where social capital can be deployed to mitigate the impacts of missing markets. The field research to date has only begun to scratch the surface in document how psychological mechanisms affect behavior and decision-making, and substantial scope remains for future work to determine whether these constraints play a first-order role in shaping poverty. |
| JEL: | D03 I3 O1 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34753 |