The literature on social capital has strongly increased in the last two decades, but there still is a lack of substantial empirical evidence about the determinants of international trust. This empirical study analyses a cross-section of individuals, using micro-data from the World Values Survey,...

Many countries have undertaken central-bank independence reforms, but the years of implementation differ. What explains such differences in timing? This is of interest more broadly, as it sheds light on factors that matter for the speed at which economic reforms come about. We study a rich set...

Social trust has been identified as a catalyst for reforms. We take the literature further in two ways. First, we make a fine-grained analysis of mechanisms through which social trust enables liberalizing reforms - by strengthening the ability to overcome obstacles in the political process...

This research explores the economic causes and consequences of language structures. It advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that variations in pre-industrial geographical characteristics that were conducive to higher returns to agricultural investment, gender gaps in agricultural...

This research explores the geographical origins of the coevolution of cultural and linguistic traits in the course of human history, relating the geographical roots of long-term orientation to the structure of the future tense, the agricultural determinants of gender bias to the presence of...

Cities, home to more than half of the world’s population and important economic hubs, are vulnerable to climate change and worthy to protect. To address these challenges, implementing adaptation measures is inevitable. The paper provides insights into climate change related risks,...

This paper summarizes findings from a soon to be published manuscript entitled Global City Regions in Transition: The Struggle for Governability in London, New York, Paris and Tokyo by Paul Kantor, Christian Lefevre, Asato Saito, H. V. Savitch and Andy Thornley. Our survey demonstrates that...