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Culture

Paper Session

Sunday, Jan. 9, 2022 3:45 PM - 5:45 PM (EST)

Hosted By: Association for Comparative Economic Studies
  • Chair: Sascha O. Becker, Monash University and University of Warwick

Expanding the Measurement of Culture with a Sample of Two Billion Humans

Nick Obradovich Obradovich
,
Max Planck Institute for Human Development
Ömer Özak
,
Southern Methodist University
Ignacio Martín
,
Universidad Carlos III
Ignacio Ortuño-Ortín
,
Universidad Carlos III
Edmond Awad
,
University of Exeter
Manuel Cebrián
,
Max Planck Institute for Human Development
Rubén Cuevas
,
Universidad Carlos III
Klaus Desmet
,
Southern Methodist University
Iyad Rahwan
,
Max Planck Institute for Human Development
Ángel Cuevas
,
Universidad Carlos III

Abstract

Culture has played a pivotal role in human evolution. Yet, the ability of social scientists to study culture is limited by the currently available measurement instruments. Scholars of culture must regularly choose between scalable but sparse survey-based methods or restricted but rich ethnographic methods. Here, we demonstrate that massive online social networks can advance the study of human culture by providing quantitative, scalable, and high-resolution measurement of behaviorally revealed cultural values and preferences. We employ publicly available data across nearly 60,000 topic dimensions drawn from two billion Facebook users across 225 countries and territories. We first validate that cultural distances calculated from this measurement instrument correspond to traditional survey-based and objective measures of cross-national cultural differences. We then demonstrate that this expanded measure enables rich insight into the cultural landscape globally at previously impossible resolution. We analyze the importance of national borders in shaping culture, explore unique cultural markers that identify subnational population groups, and compare subnational divisiveness to gender divisiveness across countries. The global collection of massive data on human behavior provides a high-dimensional complement to traditional cultural metrics. Further, the granularity of the measure presents enormous promise to advance scholars’ understanding of additional fundamental questions in the social sciences. The measure enables detailed investigation into the geopolitical stability of countries, social cleavages within both small and large-scale human groups, the integration of migrant populations, and the disaffection of certain population groups from the political process, among myriad other potential future applications

Narratives and the Economics of the Family

Robert Akerlof
,
University of Warwick
Luis Rayo
,
Northwestern University

Abstract

We augment Becker's classic model of the family by assuming that, in addition to caring about consumption, the family wishes to further a subjective story, or narrative, that captures its deeply held values. Our focus is on two stories that in many ways are polar opposites. The first one--the protector narrative--gives rise to a type of traditional family where gender roles are distinct, men and women are pushed towards "separate spheres," and men are expected to be tough and authoritarian. The second one--the fulfillment narrative--gives rise to a type of modern family where roles are less distinct, family members have greater latitude in their decisions, and marriages are based to a greater extent on romantic love. We derive a rich bundle of behaviors associated with each story, and using survey data, we show that our findings are consistent with a variety of empirical patterns.

Herding, Warfare, and a Culture of Honor: Global Evidence

Paola Giuliano
,
University of California-Los Angeles
Yiming Cao
,
Boston University
Benjamin Enke
,
Harvard University
Armin Falk
,
Briq Institute on Behavior and Inequality
Nathan Nunn
,
Harvard University

Abstract

According to the widely known ‘culture of honor’ hypothesis from social psychology, traditional herding practices are believed to have generated a value system that is conducive to revenge-taking and violence. This paper studies the relevance of this hypothesis for explaining the global variation in both observed conflict and an underlying psychology of punishment and revenge-taking. Using a combination of ethnographic records, historical folklore information, global data on contemporary conflict events, and large-scale survey data, we document systematic links between traditional herding practices and a culture of honor. First, the culture of pre-industrial ethnic groups that relied on animal herding emphasizes concepts related to violence, punishment, and revenge-taking. Second, contemporary ethnolinguistic groups that historically subsisted more strongly on herding exhibit more frequent and severe conflict today. Third, the contemporary descendants of herders report being more willing to take revenge and punish unfair behavior in the globally-representative Global Preferences Survey. In all, the evidence is supportive of the notion that this form of economic subsistence generated a functional psychology that has persisted until today and plays a role in shaping conflict across the globe.

Discussant(s)
Max Winkler
,
Harvard University
Pauline Grosjean
,
University of New South Wales
Melanie Meng Xue
,
London School of Economics
JEL Classifications
  • Z1 - Cultural Economics; Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology
  • D9 - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics