Why has polygyny, marriage of a man to multiple women, common in most societies throughout history, almost disappeared in modern industrialized countries? Do women play a role in its disappearance? A simple theoretical model suggests that at the later stage of the transition from polygyny to...

This article analyses the increasing socio-economic segmentation of rural society in Northern Italy in the early modern era. With a synthesis of the historiography on the Italian countryside plus original archival research, we reconstruct the political role and the socioeconomic basis of rural...

This paper studies how the strength of social ties is affected by the geographical location of other individuals and their social capital. We characterize the equilibrium in terms of both social interactions and social capital. We show that lower travel costs increase not only the interaction...

Climate change and other sustainability problems represent unprecedented challenges to humanity today. Because of such challenges there is a need for fundamental social changes of current unsustainable society. There is essential advanced interdisciplinary scientific contribution for informing...