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Inefficient Group Organization as Optimal Adaption to Dominant Environments
Kolmar, Martin; Wagener, Andreas - CESifo - 2010
Contests between groups are plagued by intra-group externalities (freeriding). Yet, costless incentive schemes that entirely avoid free-riding within a group might not be desirable, neither individually nor socially. In contests among two groups, a relatively weak (i.e., small or unproductive)...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10008498991
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Trust in Public Institutions over the Business Cycle
Stevenson, Betsey; Wolfers, Justin - CESifo - 2011
We document that trust in public institutions—and particularly trust in banks, business and government—has declined over recent years. U.S. time series evidence suggests that this partly reflects the pro-cyclical nature of trust in institutions. Cross-country comparisons reveal a clear...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10008872215
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Incomplete Property Rights and Overinvestment
Amegashie, J. Atsu - CESifo - 2009
encroacher’s valuation of the asset is increasing in the asset owner’s investment. Due to incomplete property rights, the … encroacher and asset owner engage in a contest over the control of the asset after investment has taken place. A standard result … is that the asset owner will underinvest in the asset relative to the first-best level of investment when property rights …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005013039
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Not the Opium of the People: Income and Secularization in a Panel of Prussian Counties
Becker, Sascha O.; Woessmann, Ludger - CESifo - 2013
The interplay between religion and the economy has occupied social scientists for long. We construct a unique panel of income and Protestant church attendance for six waves of up to 175 Prussian counties spanning 1886-1911. The data reveal a marked decline in church attendance coinciding with...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010877739
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The Preoccupation of the United Nations with Israel: Evidence and Theory
Becker, Raphael N.; Hillman, Arye L.; Potrafke, Niklas; … - CESifo - 2014
We compiled data on all United Nations General Assembly resolutions on which voting took place between January 1990 and June 2013 and find a preoccupation with one country: in 65 percent of instances in which a country is criticized in a resolution, the country is Israel, with no other country...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010948855
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Social Cohesion, Religious Beliefs, and the Effect of Protestantism on Suicide
Sascha O, Becker; Woessmann, Ludger - CESifo - 2015
In an economic theory of suicide, we model social cohesion of the religious community and religious beliefs about afterlife as two mechanisms by which Protestantism increases suicide propensity. We build a unique micro-regional dataset of 452 Prussian counties in 1816-21 and 1869-71, when...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011212081
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Education Promoted Secularization
Becker, Sascha O.; Nagler, Markus; Woessmann, Ludger - CESifo - 2014
Why did substantial parts of Europe abandon the institutionalized churches around 1900? Empirical studies using modern data mostly contradict the traditional view that education was a leading source of the seismic social phenomenon of secularization. We construct a unique panel dataset of...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010752162
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Policies against Human Trafficking: The Role of Religion and Political Institutions
Potrafke, Niklas - CESifo - 2013
I investigate empirically the role of religion and political institutions in policies against human trafficking, using the new 3P Anti-trafficking Policy Index. The dataset contains 175 countries. The results show that governments in countries with Christian majorities implement stricter...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010668474
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Luther and the Girls: Religious Denomination and the Female Education Gap in 19th Century Prussia
Becker, Sascha O.; Woessmann, Ludger - CESifo - 2008
Martin Luther urged each town to have a girls’ school so that girls would learn to read the Gospel, evoking a surge of building girls’ schools in Protestant areas. Using county- and town-level data from the first Prussian census of 1816, we show that a larger share of Protestants decreased...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005766100
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The Effect of Protestantism on Education before the Industrialization: Evidence from 1816 Prussia
Becker, Sascha O.; Woessmann, Ludger - CESifo - 2010
This paper uses recently discovered data on nearly 300 Prussian counties in 1816 to show that Protestantism led to more schools and higher school enrolment already before the industrialization. This evidence supports the human capital theory of Protestant economic history of Becker and Woessmann...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10008533997