The economics of cultural transmission and the dynamics of preferences

This paper studies the population dynamics of preference traits in a model of intergenerational cultural transmission. Parents socialize and transmit their preferences to their offspring, motivated by a form of paternalistic altruism ("imperfect empathy"). In such a setting we study the long run sta tionary state pattern of preferences in the population. according to cariou s socialization mechanisms and institutions. and identify sufficient condit ions for the global stability of an heterogenous stationary distribution of the preference traits. We show that cultural transmission mechanisms have very different implicati ons than evolutionary selection mechanisms with respect to the dynamics of the distribution of the traits in the population, and we study mechanisms w hich interact evolutionary; selection and cultural transmission. (C) 2001 A cademic Press.