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作者:Schulz, Jonathan F.
作者单位:George Mason University
摘要:This study provides evidence that strong kin networks are detrimental for democratic participatory institutions and that the medieval Catholic Church's marriage regulations dissolved Europe's clan-based kin networks, which contributed to the emergence of participatory institutions. I show that weak ancestral kin networks are positively associated with ethnicities' democratic traditions in the past and countries' democracy scores today. At the same time, medieval Church exposure predicts weak k...
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作者:Merilainen, Jaakko
作者单位:Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico; Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico
摘要:Does political selection matter for policy in representative governments? I use administrative data on local politicians in Finland and exploit exogenous variation generated by close elections to show that electing more high-income, incumbent and competent politicians (who earn more than observably similar politicians) improves fiscal sustainability outcomes, but does not decrease the size of the public sector. I also provide suggestive evidence that electing more university-educated local cou...
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作者:Di Falco, Salvatore; Vieider, Ferdinand M.
作者单位:University of Geneva; Ghent University; Mohammed VI Polytechnic University
摘要:We present incentivised panel data measuring risk preferences of subsistence farmers from across Ethiopia and pair them with rainfall data. We use these data to test the hypothesis that risk preferences may adapt to the environment of the decision maker. We find that rainfall shocks decrease risk tolerance for the same individuals over time. We also find that historical rainfall characteristics and geographical features can explain 40% of the variation in preferences across individuals. The ti...
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作者:Serra-Garcia, Marta
作者单位:University of California System; University of California San Diego
摘要:Risk attitudes determine decision making by individuals. Theoretically, heterogeneity in risk attitudes also affects household behaviour, increasing or decreasing marital instability, depending on whether households benefit primarily from sharing public goods or risk. Using a nationally representative sample with repeated measurements of risk attitudes, this paper shows that intrahousehold heterogeneity in risk attitudes is an economically and statistically significant predictor of future mari...
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作者:Herweg, Fabian; Schmidt, Klaus M.
作者单位:University of Bayreuth; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; University of Munich; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK
摘要:Carbon prices are the most cost-effective instrument to reduce CO2 emissions, but there is strong political opposition to raising them to the efficient level. Therefore, additional efforts of consumers, firms and local governments are required. We study how different regulatory regimes affect moral behaviour and show that a carbon tax complements voluntary efforts to reduce emissions. while cap and trade discourages them. the opportunity to invest in offsets increases welfare, while the option...
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作者:Draca, Mirko; Garred, Jason; Stickland, Leanne; Warrinnier, Nele
作者单位:University of Warwick; University of Ottawa; University of London; Queen Mary University London
摘要:How successful are sanctions at targeting the economic interests of political elites in affected countries? We study the case of Iran, using information on the stock exchange-listed assets of two specific political entities with significant influence over the direction of Iran's nuclear programme. Our identification strategy focuses on the process of negotiations for sanctions removal, examining which interests benefit most from news about diplomatic progress. The results indicate the 'bluntne...
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作者:Bosquet, Clement; Combes, Pierre-Philippe; Henry, Emeric; Mayer, Thierry
作者单位:Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); Institut d'Etudes Politiques Paris (Sciences Po)
摘要:Using an instrument based on a national contest in France determining researchers' location, we find evidence of peer effects in academia, when focusing on precise groups of senders (producing the spillovers) and receivers (benefiting from the spillovers), defined based on field of specialisation, gender and age. These peer effects are present even outside formal co-authorship relationships. Furthermore, the match between the characteristics of senders and receivers plays a critical role. In p...
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作者:Leeson, Peter T.; Hardy, R. August; Suarez, Paola A.
作者单位:George Mason University; Seton Hall University
摘要:The central implication of maximising behaviour amid competition is that rates of return tend toward equality. We test that implication in a market whose participants have the traits that behavioural economics suggests should make it hardest to find evidence of maximisation: the market for panhandling at Metrorail stations in Washington, District of Columbia. We find that stations with more panhandling opportunities attract more panhandlers and that cross-station differences in hourly panhandl...
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作者:Franck, Raphael; Galor, Oded
作者单位:Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; Brown University; IZA Institute Labor Economics; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要:This research explores the effect of early industrialisation on human capital formation. Exploiting exogenous regional variations in the adoption of steam engines across France, the study suggests that, in contrast to conventional wisdom that views early industrialisation as a predominantly deskilling process, the industrial revolution was conducive for human capital formation, generating wide-ranging gains in literacy rates and educational attainment. However, this increase in human capital f...
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作者:Gill, David; Prowse, Victoria
作者单位:Purdue University System; Purdue University
摘要:We leverage response-time data from repeated strategic interactions to measure the strategic complexity of a situation by how long people think on average when they face that situation (where we categorise situations according to characteristics of play in the previous round). We find that strategic complexity varies significantly across situations, and we find considerable heterogeneity in how responsive subjects' thinking times are to complexity. We also study how variation in response times...