On the cultural transmission of preferences for social status

• 成果类型: Article; Proceedings Paper
• 署名作者: Bisin, A; Verdier, T
• 署名单位: New York University; Institut Polytechnique de Paris; Ecole des Ponts ParisTech; Institut Polytechnique de Paris; Ecole des Ponts ParisTech
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/S0047-2727(98)00061-9
• 发表日期: 1998
• 页码: 75-97
• 关键词: cultural transmission; social status; socialization

摘要

We study the formation of preferences for 'social status' as the result of intergenerational transmission of cultural traits. We characterize the behavior of parents with preferences for status in terms of socialization of their children to this particular cultural trait. We show that degenerate distributions of the population (whereby agents have either all status preferences or all non-status preferences) are dynamically unstable. Moreover, under some conditions, there exists a unique stationary distribution which is non-degenerate (in which both status and non-status preferences co-exist in the population), and this distribution is locally stable. Finally, we study the dependence of the stable stationary distribution of status preferences on institutional, technological and policy parameters which affect agents' economic conditions. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.