VERTICAL TRANSMISSION OF CONSUMPTION BEHAVIOR AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF SURNAMES

This paper attempts to detect the existence of links in consumptionpreferences between generations. Preferences for consumption goods may bedetermined by the preferences of parents (vertical transmission) and/or bypreferences arising from the environment (horizontal transmission). Wepropose an indirect methodology to overcome the lack of data on consumptionchoices of dynasties, i.e., parents and their adult offspring. This new approachis based on the analysis of the correlation between the geographicaldistributions of surnames and consumption choices. Our results show that thereis horizontal transmission of preferences regarding non-food items and possiblyvertical transmission for food items.