Must-Read: Gérard Roland and David Yang: Cultural change and intergenerational transmission: Some lessons from China’s Cultural Revolution

Must-Read: Gérard Roland and David Yang: Cultural change and intergenerational transmission: Some lessons from China’s Cultural Revolution: “The Cultural Revolution… the shutdown of the Chinese university system between 1966 and 1976… http://voxeu.org/article/cultural-change-and-intergenerational-transmission

…Among the first policies that were enacted immediately following the end of the Cultural Revolution was the reintroduction of the college entrance exam, Gaokao, in 1977 after a ten-year interruption…. We zoom in on this narrow window of cohorts who graduated from high school just before and just after the end of the Cultural Revolution, the exogenous loss of opportunity due to the suspension of higher education remains arguably the only difference between these neighbouring cohorts…. High school graduates born in 1957 and 1958 who missed out on college education are significantly less likely to believe that effort pays off relative to luck, even well into their sixties. In addition, they hold persistent grudges against the government for these lost opportunities, as they report significantly higher distrust of the government compared to later cohorts….

We also find that parents only transmitted part of their changed beliefs to their children. We find that while the ‘lost generation’ passed down the acquired larger mistrust towards the government to their children, their changed beliefs on the role of effort versus luck are transmitted to the next generation to a much lesser degree…. Whether given events and experiences lead to a persistent or a transitory change across generations has critical implications for the dynamic evolution of the corresponding beliefs and preferences. We still know very little…