Conférence jean-jacques laffont coévolution entre institutions et culture: une application au développement de long terme

This paper proposes a formal framework to study the coevolution between institutions and culture and their implications in terms of socio-economic results. Institutional change is described as a process to resolve the fundamental problems of policy credibility among social groups. Cultural evolution is modeled as an intergenerational transmission process within a dynamic populations. Wes characterize the institutional and cultural dynamics as reinforcing each other (dynamic complementarities) or mitigating each other (dynamic substituabilities) and we discuss the empirical implications of the comparative dynamics. An example applied to the case of economic modernization and structural change is presented.