An Economic Model of Acculturation under Strategic Complements and Substitutes

Abstract

We propose a cultural transmission model based on the co-evolution of cultural traits, behaviors, and socialization levels. Cultural traits affect agents’ behavior during their interaction in a strategic environment. In turn, behaviors affect both how much parents directly socialize their children and the traits they decide to transmit. The co-evolution of cultural traits and behaviors across two cultural groups microfounds well-established acculturation processes: assimilation, integra- tion, marginalization, and separation. We characterize how the occurrence of each process depends on the nature of the strategic environment (complements or sub- stitutes), whether the material payoffs are stochastic or not, and the on costs of transmitting a trait.