This chapter discusses the strong impact of economic forces, and changes in the economic environment, on American Jewish observance and American Jewish religious institutions in the 20th century. Beginning with the immigrants' experience of dramatic economic change between the old country and...

The role of women in the ritual of many religions changed dramatically at the end of the 20th century, to the point where full participation by women was the norm by 2000 rather than the rarity that it had been 30 years earlier. This paper considers some aspects of the economic context that help...

We provide evidence that a history of democracy at the local level is associated with contemporary democracy at the national level. Auxiliary estimates show that a tradition of local democracy is also associated with attitudes that favor democracy, with better quality institutions, and higher...

The gender wage gap varies across countries. For example, among OECD nations women in Australia, Belgium, Italy and Sweden earn 80% as much as males, whereas in Austria, Canada and Japan women earn about 60%. Current studies examining cross-country differences focus on the impact of labor market...

We analyze voluntary private contributions to public goods and the role seed money plays in signaling the public good's quality to potential subsequent contributors. We present a theoretical model and analyze two sets of naturally occurring data from crowd-funding platforms. After developing the...

This paper examines the effect of parental divorce during childhood on generalized trust later on in life using Australian HILDA panel data. The dependent variable is composed of answers to the statement: “Generally speaking, most people can be trusted”. The main explanatory variables...