We conducted a multi-country experiment on whether a reminder of the Islamic prohibition on interest induces lenders to choose Profit-Loss Sharing arrangements (PLS) as an alternative. We find that 1) Muslims are more likely to choose PLS than non-Muslims; 2) they do so when interest rates are...

In June 2013, the High-Level Conference of Middle-Income Countries held in Costa Rica, organised by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), ventured an intriguing look into the future of development. In particular, the conference highlighted the role of networks in...

The Degrowth Movement calls for "degrowth" - a reduction in GDP in advanced economies - to avert an ecological crisis. This paper argues that the Degrowth Movement misses that the West is already in a state resembling degrowth - a Great Stagnation. This state of degrowth and its correlates,...

The demographic history of the Jews in the Middle Ages may be characterized by two main phenomena: i) a sharp drop in the number of Jews until the beginning of the modern period, due mainly to conversions; and, ii) early urbanization. Until now, these features have been analyzed as primarily...

Evidence of gender differences in cooperation in social dilemmas is inconclusive. This paper experimentally elicits unconditional contributions, a contribution vector (cooperative preferences), and beliefs about the level of others' contributions in variants of the public goods game. We show...

The chapter argues that the reform of the corporation to promote greater social responsibility is an unlikely solution to the crisis of climate change. The managers of business organisations are relatively powerless in the face of the powerful market forces which drive increasing consumption of...

This paper argues that openness to goods trade in combination with an unequal distribution of political power has been a major determinant of the comparatively slow development of resource- or land-abundant regions like South America and the Caribbean in the nineteenth century. We develop a...

We test the hypotheses that fundamental characteristics in regional proximity, landlockedness, religious-domination, legal origin, and income levels affect cross-country differences in the persistence in political terror and political instability in 163 countries for the period 2010 to 2015. The...

Countries pass through different stages of structural transformation. In the early stage of development, economic activity is dominated by agriculture and mining. As a country develops, firms adopt new technology and move toward industrialization and faster economic growth. Eventually, the...