This paper investigates whether social cohesion makes economic reforms more likely. First, we investigated whether social cohesion is a coherent concept by using a principal-component factor (PCF) analysis covering 16 indicators used to measure social cohesion in the previous literature for 40...

This paper investigates whether social cohesion makes economic reforms more likely. First, we investigated whether social cohesion is a coherent concept by using a principal-component factor (PCF) analysis covering 16 indicators used to measure social cohesion in the previous literature for 40...

With the number of Syrians who have fled their country since 2011 exceeding 5 million, and no end in sight of the Syrian civil war, there is little expectation that Syrians currently residing outside of Syria are likely to go back soon. The question of their integration into their respective...

An unprecedented number of refugees from Syria has sought refuge in both the Middle East as well as in Europe since the beginning of the civil war in Syria in 2011. Refugees do not only bring patterns of behavior they have acquired over their childhood and adolescence with them but also the –...

This paper incorporates the phenomenon of tolerance, as the ability to accept diversity, into an economic analysis showing how different aptitudes to trust and cooperation can affect economic outcomes. In the economic system we propose, tolerance is associated with the different weight that...

This paper analyzes how institutions aimed at coordinating economic interactions may appear. We build a model in which agents play a prisoners’ dilemma game in a hypothetical state of nature. Agents can delegate the task of enforcing cooperation in interactions to one of them in exchange for a...

This paper investigates whether social cohesion makes economic reforms more likely. First, we investigated whether social cohesion is a coherent concept by using a principal-component factor (PCF) analysis covering 16 indicators used to measure social cohesion in the previous literature for 40...

Our theory of cultural-institutional persistence and innovation is based on uncoordinated updating of individual social norms and contracts, so that both culture and institutions co-evolve. We explain why Pareto-dominated cultural-institutional configurations may persist over long periods and...

This paper examines the impact of crime and insecurity on support for and satisfaction with democracy and trust in institutions. We use survey data from the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) for Colombia during the 2004-2010 period. We find that perceptions of insecurity, crime...