Globalization and the transmission of social values: The case of tolerance

Tolerance - respecting those who are different - is arguably of particular importance in an era of globalization, where a potential for economic, social and personal development is increasingly a function of interaction with others different from oneself. We investigate whether globalization induces parents to want to instill tolerance in their children, the main idea being that this quality would equip children for greater success in a more integrated world. Using a survey measure, we indeed find that globalization enhances the willingness to transmit such social values. More precisely, economic and social, but not to the same extent political, globalization has this effect, as shown by using the KOF Index of Globalization in regression analysis of up to 59 countries. Extreme bounds analysis and outlier tests indicate robustness. Overall, our results suggest that certain kinds of globalization seem able to shape values in ways considered desirable by many. Journal of Comparative Economics 43 (2) (2015) 371-389. Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), P.O. Box 55665, 102 15 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Institutional, Environmental and Experimental Economics (KIE), University of Economics in Prague, Winston Churchill Sqaure 4, 130 67 Prague 3, Czech Republic; Department of Economics, Lund University, P.O. Box 7082, 220 07 Lund, Sweden. (C) 2015 Association for Comparative Economic Studies. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.