Incompatible European Partners? Cultural Predispositions and Household Financial Behavior
Forthcoming in Management Science
Posted: 25 Apr 2016
There are 6 versions of this paper
Incompatible European Partners? Cultural Predispositions and Household Financial Behavior
Incompatible European Partners? Cultural Predispositions and Household Financial Behavior
Incompatible European Partners? Cultural Predispositions and Household Financial Behavior
Incompatible European Partners? Cultural Predispositions and Household Financial Behavior
Incompatible European Partners? Cultural Predispositions and Household Financial Behavior
Date Written: April 21, 2016
Abstract
The recent influx of migrants and refugees into Europe and elsewhere raises questions as to whether migrant behavior reflects cultural predispositions and whether assimilation through exposure to host institutions can be expected. The paper focuses on financial behavior and uses high-quality administrative data on migrants and refugees to Sweden. It uncovers differences across cultural groups in how behavior relates to household characteristics, and shows that differences diminish with exposure to host country institutions, even for large cultural distances. Interestingly, robust cultural classification of European countries based on genetic distance or on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions fails to identify a single ‘southern’ culture but points to a ‘northern’ culture. Our results also have implications for the potential of European institutional harmonization, exogenously imposed during the fiscal crisis, to alleviate cultural differences in financial behavior.
Keywords: household finance, portfolio choice, culture
JEL Classification: G11, E21
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation