Final Report Summary - TECTACOM (The Economics of Cultural Transmission and Applications to Communities,Organizations and Markets)
Recently, there has been mounting evidence in the economic literature about the importance of cultural dimensions and their evolution to explain a variety of socio-economic phenomena. Taking that perspective seriously, this project develops an economic approach of the evolution of preferences and cultural transmission interacting with the functioning of communities, organizations and markets. The conceptual framework develops mathematical dynamic models of population dynamics and structural empirical econometric models in which the transmission of cultural values is the result of purposeful actions undertaken by various socializing agents (the family, the state, public and private institutions). It analyzes the implications of cultural change in various socio-economic settings of importance for political economy, economic history and policy analysis of cultural and socio-economic integration.
The project highlights within a new conceptual framework the importance of the co-evolution of institutions and culture to understand some long term historical dynamics in the context of long run economic development outcomes. As well, the project indicates how the interaction between different drivers of change, some of which involving centralized processes of decision making and others involving decentralized and uncoordinated evolutionary changes, may create policy-induced threshold effects on cultural evolution and socio-economic assimilation of minority or disadvantaged groups. Applied to the issue of nation-state building and the polarization or convergence of social identities, and to the question of the control of social pathological behaviors such as crime and delinquency, these effects help understand why public policies may backfire compared to their intended purpose.
The project highlights within a new conceptual framework the importance of the co-evolution of institutions and culture to understand some long term historical dynamics in the context of long run economic development outcomes. As well, the project indicates how the interaction between different drivers of change, some of which involving centralized processes of decision making and others involving decentralized and uncoordinated evolutionary changes, may create policy-induced threshold effects on cultural evolution and socio-economic assimilation of minority or disadvantaged groups. Applied to the issue of nation-state building and the polarization or convergence of social identities, and to the question of the control of social pathological behaviors such as crime and delinquency, these effects help understand why public policies may backfire compared to their intended purpose.