Ancient Origins of the Global Variation in Economic Preferences

Arbeitspapier

Variation in economic preferences is systematically related to both individual and aggregate economic outcomes, yet little is known about the origins of the worldwide preference variation. This paper uses globally representative data on risk aversion, time preference, altruism, positive reciprocity, negative reciprocity, and trust to uncover that contemporary preference heterogeneity has its roots in the structure of the temporally distant migration patterns of our very early ancestors: In dyadic regressions, differences in preferences between populations are significantly increasing in the length of time elapsed since the ancestors of the respective groups broke apart from each other. To document this pattern, we link genetic and linguistic distance measures to population-level preference differences (i) in a wide range of cross-country regressions, (ii) in within-country analyses across groups of migrants, and (iii) in analyses that leverage variation across linguistic groups. While temporal distance drives differences in all preferences, the patterns are strongest for risk aversion and prosocial traits.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 13052

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
• Thema: risk preferences ; time preferences ; social preferences ; origins of preferences

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Becker, Anke ; Enke, Benjamin ; Falk, Armin
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (wo): Bonn
• (wann): 2020

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/216364
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:43 MEZ