Why is religiosity in contemporary America exceptionally high relative to those in other rich countries? I develop a simple theory that hinges on the sense of security of immigrant-identity, which is informed by both religion and ethnicity. Commitments to religion and to ethnicity are...

We offer a theory of gender differences in parental altruism based on the asymmetry that female fertility is constrained but male fertility is relatively unconstrained. Modelling human preferences as having been shaped during the Pleistocene, we derive evolutionarily stable, co-evolved male and...

Religion, ethnicity, and political ideology all lend themselves to the perpetration of mass atrocities by creating a sense of identity that sets up an Us/Them dichotomy. Atrocities here are seen as arising from the motive of acquiring territory but augmented by other-regarding preferences that...

This paper attempts to assess the relative contributions of the farm and non-farm sectors to the increase in agricultural wage earnings in India between 1983-1999. Cross-section analysis of NSS data for 1983 and 1993 confirm the importance of farm productivity growth, consistent with the...

This paper proposes a theory of the origins of India’s caste system by explicitly recognizing the productivity of women in complementing their husbands’ skills. Its interesting to know the emergence of caste system its hereditary nature, its insistence on endogamy (marriage only...

Gender matters in economics—for even with today’s technology, fertility choices, market opportunities, and improved social norms, economic outcomes for women remain markedly worse than for men. Drawing on insights from feminism, postmodernism, psychology, evolutionary biology, Marxism, and...