Does Culture Affect Unemployment? Evidence from the Röstigraben

47 Pages Posted: 21 Jul 2009

See all articles by Beatrix Brügger

Beatrix Brügger

University of Lausanne

Rafael Lalive

University of Lausanne - Department of Economics; IZA Institute of Labor Economics; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research)

Josef Zweimüller

University of Zurich - Department of Economics; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute); IZA Institute of Labor Economics

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Abstract

This paper studies the role of culture in shaping unemployment outcomes. The empirical analysis is based on local comparisons across a language barrier in Switzerland. This Röstigraben separates cultural groups, but neither labor markets nor political jurisdictions. Local contrasts across the language border identify the role of culture for unemployment. Our findings indicate that differences in culture explain differences in unemployment duration on the order of 20%. Moreover, we find that horizontal transmission of culture is more important than vertical transmission of culture and that culture is about as important as strong changes to the benefit duration.

Keywords: culture, cultural transmission, unemployment duration, regional unemployment

JEL Classification: J21, J64, Z10

Suggested Citation

Brügger, Beatrix and Lalive, Rafael and Zweimueller, Josef, Does Culture Affect Unemployment? Evidence from the Röstigraben. IZA Discussion Paper No. 4283, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1434617 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1434617

Beatrix Brügger (Contact Author)

University of Lausanne ( email )

Quartier Chambronne
Lausanne, Vaud CH-1015
Switzerland

Rafael Lalive

University of Lausanne - Department of Economics ( email )

Batiment Internef
Lausanne, 1015
Switzerland

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research)

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE-81679
Germany

Josef Zweimueller

University of Zurich - Department of Economics ( email )

Zuerich, 8006
Switzerland
+411 634 3724 (Phone)
+411 634 4907 (Fax)

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

London
United Kingdom

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE-81679
Germany

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

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