Citation

Discussion Paper Details

Please find the details for DP14998 in an easy to copy and paste format below:

Full Details

Title: Economic preferences across generations and family clusters: A large-scale experiment

Author(s): Shyamal Chowdhury, Matthias Sutter and Klaus F Zimmermann

Publication Date: July 2020

Keyword(s): Bangladesh, Economic preferences within families, Experiment, family clusters, Intergenerational Transmission of Preferences, risk preferences, social preferences, socio-economic status and Time preferences

Programme Area(s): Labour Economics

Abstract: Economic preferences are important for lifetime outcomes such as educational achievements, health status, or labor market success. We present a holistic view of how economic preferences are related within families. In an experiment with 544 families (and 1,999 individuals) from rural Bangladesh we find a large degree of intergenerational persistence of economic preferences. Both mothers' and fathers' risk, time and social preferences are significantly (and largely to the same degree) positively correlated with their children's economic preferences, even when controlling for personality traits and socio-economic background data. We discuss possible transmission channels for these relationships within families and find indications that there is more than pure genetics at work. Moving beyond an individual level analysis, we are the first to classify a whole family into one of two clusters, with either relatively patient, risk-tolerant and pro-social members or relatively impatient, risk averse and spiteful members. Socio-economic background variables correlate with the cluster to which a family belongs to.

For full details and related downloads, please visit: https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=14998

Bibliographic Reference

Chowdhury, S, Sutter, M and Zimmermann, K. 2020. 'Economic preferences across generations and family clusters: A large-scale experiment'. London, Centre for Economic Policy Research. https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=14998