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displaced state authorities and promoted the creation of self-governing institutions that embodied local values and openly … state. Our results suggest that community institutions in guerrilla-controlled areas led to enduring land fragmentation and … disengagement with the government. We argue that when non-state actors develop alternative governance institutions, they can lead to …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013388844
Two centuries ago, in most countries around the world, women were unable to vote, had no say over their own children or property, and could not obtain a divorce. Women have gradually gained rights in many areas of life, and this legal expansion has been closely intertwined with economic...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013462666
We develop a measure of a regime's tolerance for an action by its citizens. We ground our measure in an economic model and apply it to the setting of political protest. In the model, a regime anticipating a protest can take a costly action to repress it. We define the regime's tolerance as the...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013334386
This paper assesses the role of ideas in economic change, combining economic and historical analysis with insights from psychology, sociology and anthropology. Belief systems shape the system of categories ("pre-confirmatory bias") and perceptions (confirmatory bias), and are themselves...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012462860
We study the climate as a determinant of religious belief. People believe in the divine when religious authorities (the "church") can credibly intervene in nature on their behalf. We present a model in which nature sets the pattern of rainfall over time and the church chooses when optimally to...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10014322798
differences through the dynamics of saving and investment. We posit that the drivers of economic development include institutions …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012459151
In this paper we revisit the relationship between institutions, human capital and development. We argue that empirical … models that treat institutions and human capital as exogenous are misspecified both because of the usual omitted variable … focus on historically-determined differences in human capital and control for the effect of institutions, the impact of …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012458732
We exploit differences in the mortality rates faced by European colonialists to estimate the effect of institutions on … different associated institutions. The choice of colonization strategy was, at least in part, determined by whether Europeans … likely to set up worse (extractive) institutions. These early institutions persisted to the present. We document evidence …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012470979
empower different elites and emphasize the interaction between local and nationwide institutions. We show that rising economic …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10014576570
We study the evolution of belief systems that suppress productive effort. These include concerns about the envy of others, beliefs in the importance of luck for success, disdain for competitive effort, and traditional beliefs in witchcraft. We show that such demotivating beliefs can evolve when...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10014372420