We study the role of morality in debt repayment, using an experiment with the credit card customers of a large Islamic bank in Indonesia. In our main treatment, clients receive a text message stating that “non-repayment of debts by someone who is able to repay is an injustice." This moral...

This research focuses on the determinants of declining democracy values in the world using recently available data. By doing so, factors that are expected to be correlated with declining democratic values are illuminated and discussed based on formulated hypotheses. This paper utilises...

This paper argues that the historical slave trade contributed to the propagation of persistent witchcraft beliefs on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean and establishes two key empirical patterns. First, it shows that in Sub-Saharan Africa, representatives of ethnic groups which were more heavily...

In the highly competitive age of the Internet and globalization, an organization has to be creative to prosper. This means that people have to work together and learn how to have productive meetings. Today's U.S. Congress is a prime example of what happens when people have lost the ability to...

This paper examines the relationship between witchcraft beliefs, a deep-rooted cultural phenomenon, and various elements of social capital. Using novel survey data from nineteen countries in Sub-Saharan Africa we establish a robust negative association between the prevalence of witchcraft...

This paper reviews recent economics literature on culture, with an emphasis on its relation to the field of long-run growth and development. It examines the key issues debated in the new cultural economics: causal effects of culture on economic outcomes, the origins and social costs of culture,...

Gülen's conception of Islam-friendly democracy is key to understanding his approach to sacred and secular relations. He does not see a contradiction between Islam and democracy, and he reasons that Islam establishes fundamental principles that orient a government's general character, leaving it...

The study looks at various aspects of the relationship between official law and the Muslim majority's unofficial Shari'a law in Turkey. It provides a concise account of the current secular Turkish Civil Code with a special focus on family law issues such as consent, age of marriage, registration...

For centuries, Jews in Europe have specialized in financial services. At the same time, they have been the victims of historical antisemitism on the part of the Christian majority. We find that present-day financial development is lower in German counties where historical antisemitism was...