Hayek’s approach to cultural and institutional evolution has been frequently criticized because it is explicitly based on the controversial notion of (cultural) group selection. In this paper this criticism is rejected on the basis of recent works on biological and cultural evolution. The...

The present paper analyzes determinants of confidence in public institutions. In both theoretical literature and empirical research, a link between social trust and institutional confidence has been established. The present paper casts additional light on this relationship. Our analysis also...

A growing body of empirical work measuring different types of cultural traits has shown that culture matters for a variety of economic outcomes. This paper focuses on one specific aspect of the relevance of culture: its relationship to institutions. We review work with a theoretical, empirical,...

This paper brings the economic tools of demand and supply curves to better understand how political markets shape the selection of government policies. It does so to tackle a problem at the intersection of political science and economics: government failure to pursue policies on the basis of...

We study the impact on visa restrictions of institutions and social norms in a sending country. To this purpose, we unbundle institutions into “institutions-services”, which complement productive activities and serve as public production inputs, and “institutions-rules”, which strengthen...

A growing body of empirical work measuring different types of cultural traits has shown that culture matters for a variety of economic outcomes. This paper focuses on one specific aspect of the relevance of culture: its relationship to institutions. We review work with a theoretical, empirical,...

Modern economics includes two fundamentally different fields, each labelled ‘Cultural Economics’. The first type ‘Cultural Institutions’ deals with a specific sector of the economy and society, namely institutions in the performing arts, visual arts, and other forms of cultural industry....