Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/81249 
Year of Publication: 
2005
Series/Report no.: 
IUI Working Paper No. 642
Publisher: 
The Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IUI), Stockholm
Abstract: 
We analyze the evolution of cultural traits when parents purposefully invest resources in order to socialize their children to the cultural traits that maximize child lifetime utility. We assume that children are not passive in their adoption of traits from peers. Instead they are guided by an evaluation of the merit of traits. We show that such evaluation is likely to render this process of oblique transmission biased. We then show that when transmission of traits from society is biased or frequency dependent, cultural diversity is sustainable even when all parents strive to transmit the same trait. We also show that demand for cultural pluralism on the part of parent does not guarantee cultural diversity.
Subjects: 
Peer Groups
Cultural Transmission
Cultural Diversity
Oblique Transmission
JEL: 
D10
I20
J13
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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