Public Policies and the Dynamics of Cultural Values in the Welfare State

This paper analyzes the dynamics of the distribution of a population of some of the cultural traits and norms which might be associated to the support for Welfare State as a system for the provision of public goods and as a redistributive mechanism. Cultural traits and norms are acquired through a process of intergenerational cultural transmission and socialization. We emphasize the existence of a two-way causality between the evolution of cultural traits and norms and the political outcomes, which possibly generates, in the Welfare State, multiple self-fulfilling equilibrium paths of cultural evolution, public provision of goods and redistribution. Ideologies related to the public provision of particular goods can be rationalized as coordination mechanisms allowing cultural groups to preserve or shift political power in favor of particular long run profiles of cultural traits and norms.