Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/65694 
Year of Publication: 
2008
Series/Report no.: 
Open Discussion Papers in Economics No. 68
Publisher: 
The Open University, Economics Department, Milton Keynes
Abstract: 
The contribution to the social theory of consumption of the late Pierre Bourdieu has been widely recognized, but not fully absorbed by the economics discipline. To address this lacuna, an agent-based model of Bourdieu's social theory is developed by extending Axelrod's cultural diffusion model. Bourdieu's theory is decomposed into two components: a capital effect on social interaction and an innovation effect. Whereas simulations of the capital effect are found to have a key role in the reproduction of economic inequality, by comparing survey and simulation results the innovation effect is shown to provide an insight into how cultural capital is distributed.
Subjects: 
Bourdieu
habitus
cultural capital
Axelrod
inequality
JEL: 
C0
D3
Z1
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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