Cultural leader and the dynamics of assimilation

Journal article: This paper studies the population dynamics of cultural traits in a model of intergenerational cultural transmission with a perfectly-forward looking cultural leader. We show that there exists a threshold size in terms of population above which the cultural leader becomes active. We also show that a policy affecting some key parameters (such as the cost of providing the religious good) has a different impact in the short run and in the long run due to over-reactions or under-reactions of the different cultural groups. Finally, we study the cultural competition between two forward-looking cultural leaders with opposite objectives. We show that the steady-state cultural equilibrium depends on the time preference structure of the two leaders.

Author(s)

Thierry Verdier, Yves Zénou

Journal
  • Journal of Economic Theory
Date of publication
  • 2018
Keywords
  • Cultural substituability
  • Integration
  • Forward-looking leader
Pages
  • 374 – 414
Version
  • 1
Volume
  • 175