TY - RPRT AU - Cipriani, Marco AU - Giuliano, Paola AU - Jeanne, Olivier TI - Like Mother Like Son? Experimental Evidence on the Transmission of Values from Parents to Children PY - 2007/Apr/ PB - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) CY - Bonn T2 - IZA Discussion Paper IS - 2768 UR - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp2768 AB - This paper studies whether prosocial values are transmitted from parents to their children. We do so through an economic experiment, in which a group of Hispanic and African American families play a standard public goods game. The experimental data presents us with a surprising result. We find no significant correlation between the degree of cooperation of a child and that of his or her parents. Such lack of cooperation is robust across age groups, sex, family size and different estimation strategies. This contrasts with the typical assumption made by the theoretical economic literature on the inter-generational transmission of values. The absence of correlation between parents' and children's behavior, however, is consistent with part of the psychological literature, which emphasizes the importance of peer effects in the socialization process. KW - culture KW - public good games KW - intergenerational transmission ER -