The question of the role of statutory law in social environments permeated by custom and traditional norms is particularly important when the state law aims to correct social inequalities embedded in the custom. The conventional view is that modern law often fails to take root in custom-driven...

This chapter tries to synthesize the progress that economists have made towards understanding various aspects of the role of religion in human societies from a development economics perspective. We start by reviewing the contributions that consider religious beliefs as exogenously given and try...