Institutions, defined as "the rules of the game in society", drive economic growth and prosperity. Institutions often arise from long-term processes influenced by geography, major historical events, culture, and, less commonly, religion. This chapter reviews the available evidence to demonstrate...

This article examines the organizational structure of Takaful ('Islamic' insurance) as it constitutes an interesting case study of a relatively inefficient system that has grown in popularity. This challenges the neoclassical economics view that the most efficient organizational form succeeds....

In recent extensions of the Darwinian paradigm into economics, the replicator-interactor duality looms large. I propose a strictly naturalistic approach to this duality in the context of the theory of institutions, which means that its use is seen as being always and necessarily dependent on...

In recent extensions of the Darwinian paradigm into economics, the replicator-interactor duality looms large. I propose a strictly naturalistic approach to this duality in the context of the theory of institutions, which means that its use is seen as being always and necessarily dependent on...

We study how cooperation-enforcing institutions dynamically affect values and behavior using a lab experiment designed to create individual specific histories of past institutional exposure. We show that the effect of past institutions is mostly due to “indirect” behavioral spillovers:...

In this work I combine the individualistic approach of economic theory with the social view of other social sciences to study corruption and the role of institutions and monitoring agencies when corruption takes place in a network structure. I will try to prove that if the social network is...

Social and cultural determinants of economic institutions and outcomes have come to the forefront of economic research. We introduce religiosity, measured as the share for which religion is important in daily life, to explain institutional quality in the form of property rights and the rule of...

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...

Societies in Western civilisation enforce their rules through formal institutions such as secularism (SES), whereas in less developed civilisations often rely on informal institutions such as religion (RES). The present paper attempts to explain the determinants of societies’ choice between...

Der vorliegende Beitrag zielt darauf, eine fundierte Vorgehensweise für die Untersuchung der Frage zu entwickeln, welche Auswirkungen die mentale Verfaßtheit ökonomischen Akteure auf ihr mikroökonomisches Entscheidungs- und Wahlhandlungsverhalten hat und welche Konsequenzen sich daraus auf...