Cultural Transmission and Evolution of Preferences across Regions with Endogenous Migration ∗
This paper takes the view that culture and identity play an important role in our understanding of migration as an economic phenomenon. In addition, what is often omitted from many economic studies is the fact that culture and identity are endogenous and influenced by migration. I study preference evolution across two different regions based on endogenous cultural transmission at a regional level. Voluntary and involuntary migrations across regions are allowed, as are differences in economic advancement of the two regions. I characterize various steady state equilibria with corresponding existence conditions, and assess their welfare properties. ∗This paper is written towards satisfying the mandatory economic history requirement as a part of the PhD program. I am grateful to Avner Greif for comments. †Department of Economics, Stanford University, 579 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA, 94305. Email: adugalic@stanford.edu.