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Exposure to foreign media and changes in cultural traits: Evidence from naming patterns in France

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Author Info
Anne-Célia Disdier (INRA-INAPG, UMR Economie Publique)
Keith Head (Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia)
Thierry Mayer (Université de Paris Sud, CEP II, PSE, and CEPR)

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Abstract

Free trade in audio-visual services has faced opposition on the grounds that foreign media undermine domestic culture, and ultimately, global diversity. We assess the media-culture link using name frequencies as a measure of tastes. Using a 47-year panel of French birth registries, we first show that names appearing on television shows, movies, or in songs are about five times more popular than other names. Most, but not all, of this relationship arises from endogeneity: song and script writers, as well as performers and their parents, select names that would be popular anyway. Using name attributes, fixed effects, and lagged popularity as controls, our regression results suggest that media affect choices by informing parents of unfamiliar names.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Centro Studi Luca d\'Agliano, University of Milano in its series Development Working Papers with number 213.

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Date of creation: 15 Jun 2006
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Handle: RePEc:csl:devewp:213

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Related research
Keywords: Endogenous Tastes; Cultural transmission; Television; Cinema; Popular Music;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
D19 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Other
Z10 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - General

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Andreu Mas-Colell, 1999. "Should Cultural Goods Be Treated Differently?," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 87-93, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Bala, Venkatesh & Van Long, Ngo, 2005. "International trade and cultural diversity with preference selection," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 143-162, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. David N. Figlio, 2005. "Names, Expectations and the Black-White Test Score Gap," NBER Working Papers 11195, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Bisin, Alberto & Verdier, Thierry, 2001. "The Economics of Cultural Transmission and the Dynamics of Preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 298-319, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Francois, Patrick & van Ypersele, Tanguy, 2002. "On the protection of cultural goods," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 359-369, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 991-1013, September. [Downloadable!]
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  7. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2000. "Economics And Identity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 115(3), pages 715-753, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Eckhard Janeba, 2004. "International Trade and Cultural Identity," NBER Working Papers 10426, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Roland G. Fryer & Steven D. Levitt, 2004. "The Causes and Consequences of Distinctively Black Names," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 119(3), pages 767-805, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. James E. Rauch & Vitor Trindade, 2004. "Neckties in the Tropics: a Model of International Trade and Cultural Diversity," Econometric Society 2004 North American Summer Meetings 618, Econometric Society. [Downloadable!]
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  1. Keith Head & Thierry Mayer, 2008. "Detection of local interactions from the spatial pattern of names in France," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-00266554_v1, HAL. [Downloadable!]
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