Limitations on or total prohibition of usury (or interest) have been a pervasive theme across religions and ancient societies. Since medieval times, two major institutional changes relating to non-performance of debt contracts have taken place, namely, the abolition of slavery and the evolution...

What drives change in a society's values? From Marx to modernization theory, scholars have identified a connection between structural transformation and social change. To understand how changes in a society's dominant mode of production affect its dominant values, we examine the case of the...