We provide a cultural explanation to the phenomenon of corruption in the framework of an overlapping generations model with intergenerational transmission of values. We show that the economy has two steady states with different levels of corruption. The driving force in the equilibrium selection...

We use an econometric model of fertility and children’s activities to examine the causal effects of fertility on a child’s activities taking the endogeneity of fertility into account. Our specification is nonlinear and simultaneous and uses latent factors to allow for unobserved influences...

This paper introduces incomplete information in the standard model of cultural transmission (Bisin and Verdier, 2001). We allow parents to ignore own group size and the efficiency of their cultural transmission technology, while receiving a feedback from their children. Using the selfconfirming...

This paper introduces a generalized representation of the formation of continuous preferences (which can reflect different intensities). The preference intensity that a child adopts is formed as the collective outcome of all role models for preference intensities - which are derived from the...

In the present paper the effects of different pay-as-you-go pension systems on fertility decisions of a representative household are examined. Thereby, the analysis focuses especially on the interplay of parental quantity and quality decisions, introduced by Becker (1960). As it will be shown, a...

We demonstrate that the notion of a "family constitution" (self-enforcing, renegotiation-proof family norm) requiring adults to provide attention for elderly parents carries over from a world where sexually indifferentiated individuals reproduce by cell separation, to one where individuals...

We demonstrate that the notion of a “family constitution” (self-enforcing, renegotiation-proof family norm) requiring adults to provide attention for elderly parents carries over from a world where sexually indifferentiated individuals reproduce by cell separation, to one where individuals...

We develop a theoretical labour market model with two generations of workers, endogenous social networks of parents and binary schooling choices of children. Since the market skill premium is unobservable, families rely on noisy wage information obtained from their social contacts giving rise to...

This paper provides a first microeconomic foundation for the institution of marriage. Based on a model of reproduction, mating, and parental investment in children, we argue that marriage serves the purpose of attenuating the risk of mating market failure that arises from incomplete information...