In the modern lexicon, money is pure instrumentality, a colorless medium that transparently expresses real value. Contrary to that trope, however, we can get “inside” money: we can reconnoiter it as a structure entailing value that is engineered by certain societies. Taking a...

The developed world is in the midst of an enormous demographic transition, with life expectancy increasing and fertility falling, leading to a rapid aging of the population. This trend has critical implications for long-term care around the world. This paper serves as the introduction to a...

This paper explores the role of media in mitigating the adverse effects of ethnic diversity on economic policies using a pooled OLS approach. A freer media helps build a strong public consensus, generates public awareness, creates a transparent government and, thus, fosters development....

This paper investigates the impact of individuals' social identity on their tax attitudes, and how these effects on the micro level are translated to an impact of ethnic heterogeneity on the public's 'overall' tax morale. We find that both racial and national identities play important roles...

Culture is not new to the study of migration. It has lurked beneath the surface for some time, occasionally protruding openly into the discussion, usually under some pseudonym. The authors bring culture into the open. They are concerned with how culture manifests itself in the migration process...

Results from international standardized tests show large cross-country differences in students' performances. Where do these gaps come from? This paper argues that differences in cultural environments and parental inputs may be of great importance. We show that the school performance of...

We experiment with integrating economics and ethics in a form that could be described as literary-critical economic nonfiction. After offering an interpretation of Percy Shelley's “Prometheus Unbound,” we map the modern world of commerce into our interpretation of the lyrical drama to...

We investigate whether a causal interpretation of the robust association between cognitive skills and economic growth is appropriate and whether cross-country evidence supports a case for the economic benefits of effective school policy. We develop a new common metric that allows tracking...