Old Culture
Cultures in Water-Scarce Environments Are More Long-Term Oriented
Hamidreza Harati & Thomas Talhelm
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Why do some cultures invest more for the long term, whereas others emphasize living in the moment? We took advantage of a natural experiment in Iran to test the theory that long-term water scarcity is an important cause of differences in long-term orientation and indulgence. We found that Iranians in a water-scarce province reported more long-term orientation and less indulgence than did Iranians in a nearby water-rich province (Study 1, N = 331). In a field study, Iranians in the water-scarce province sent more résumés for a long-term job ad we posted, whereas Iranians in the water-rich province sent more résumés for a short-term, flexible job (Study 2, N = 182). College students in Iran primed to think about increasing water scarcity in the environment endorsed long-term orientation more and indulgence less (Study 3, N = 211). Across 82 countries, long-run water scarcity predicted long-term orientation (Study 4). In sum, cultures in water-scarce environments value thinking for the long term more and indulgence less.
Cultural Values and Productivity
Andreas Ek
Journal of Political Economy, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper estimates differences in human capital as country-of-origin specific labor productivity terms in firm production functions, making it immune to wage discrimination concerns. After accounting for education and experience, estimated human capital varies by a factor of around 3 between the 90th and 10th percentile. When I investigate which country-of-origin characteristics most closely correlate with human capital, cultural values are the only robust predictor. This relationship persists among children of migrants. Consistent with a plausible cultural mechanism, individuals whose origin place a high value on autonomy hold a comparative advantage in positions characterized by a low degree of routinization.
Corruption and Voter Turnout: Evidence From Second Generation Americans
Joel Simmons
Comparative Political Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
When studying corruption’s consequences for voter turnout, reverse causality hinders identification; corruption may affect turnout, but an engaged citizenry may also improve governance. However, because good instruments are hard to find, most studies do not adjust for the issue. Here, I surmount the endogeneity problem by predicting turnout among second generation Americans with the level of corruption in their ancestral country. The core intuition is that the best predictors of turnout -- education, income, and civic duty -- are endogenous to corruption, internationally mobile, and reproduced inter-generationally. Thus, corruption in one country can affect turnout among the American-born children of the country’s émigrés. However, because turnout in US elections does not affect corruption in the ancestral country, there is no threat of reverse causality. Estimating the model with data from the Current Population Survey and the Varieties of Democracy Project reveals a statistically robust, substantively sizable negative effect of corruption on turnout.
Marriage markets and the rise of dowry in India
Gaurav Chiplunkar & Jeffrey Weaver
Journal of Development Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Dowry payments are common in many marriage markets. This paper uses data on over 74,000 marriages in rural India over the last century to explain why the institution of dowry emerges and how it evolves over time. We find that the proportion of Indian marriages including dowry payments doubled between 1930 and 1975, and the average real value of payments tripled. We empirically test whether four prominent theories of dowry can explain this rise, and find support for only one: increased differentiation in groom quality as a result of modernization. We also find a decline in the average real value of dowry payments after 1975 and demonstrate that this could be rationalized within a search model of marriage markets.
One-Child Policy, Marriage Distortion, and Welfare Loss
Wei Huang, Yinghao Pan & Yi Zhou
Review of Economics and Statistics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We investigate how exposure to the One-Child Policy (OCP) during early adulthood affects marriage and fertility in China. Exploring fertility penalties across provinces over time and the different implementations by ethnicity, we show that the OCP significantly increases the unmarried rate among the Han ethnicity but not among the minorities. The OCP increases Han-minority marriages in regions where Han-minority couples are allowed for an additional child, but the impact is smaller in other regions. Finally, the deadweight loss caused by lower fertility accounts for 10 percent of annual household incomes, and policy-induced fewer marriages contribute to 30 percent of the fertility decline.
Education Fever and Adolescent Deviance in China
Wan Huang, Xiaojin Chen & Yuning Wu
Crime & Delinquency, forthcoming
Abstract:
Is education fever in China, embodied in parents’ high expectations of and heavy investments in children’s education, a source of strain for the offspring? Using a nationally representative sample of children from 6th to 12th grade, we examine the effects of education fever on adolescent deviance in China, controlling for a range of individual and family characteristics. The regression results revealed that parental investment increased adolescents’ deviant behavior even when children’s academic performance and family socioeconomic status were controlled, whereas parental expectation did not affect adolescents’ deviant behavior. These findings demonstrated that education fever, particularly in the form of heavy parental investment, constitutes a salient source of strain for Chinese adolescents and its deviance-promoting influence should not be ignored.
A Cross-National Study of Nomophobia Among Brazilian, Chinese, French, and U.S. Young People: The Role of Materialism
Elodie Gentina, Virginie Maille & Zhen Li
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Why do young people from Generation Z (born between 1995 and the mid-2000s) become nomophobic consumers of smartphones? This research aims for a better understanding of nomophobia, the fear of being without mobile phone contact, and this from a cross-national perspective. Data collected from 1,326 young people (aged 16-24) from Brazil, China, France, and the United States demonstrate that nomophobia is positively related to materialism, the value that consumers place on the acquisition of material objects. A structural equation model shows that the different dimensions of materialism do not affect nomophobia uniformly across national identity. Nomophobia is positively related to the happiness dimension (possessions needed for happiness) in Brazil, to the success dimension (possessions as indicators of success) in China, and to the centrality dimension (possessions as central for the self) in France and the United States. These findings have notable implications for practitioners and researchers.
The economics of extortion: Theory and the case of the Sicilian Mafia
Luigi Balletta & Andrea Mario Lavezzi
Journal of Comparative Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper studies extortion of firms operating in legal sectors by a profit-maximizing criminal organization. We develop a simple taxation model under asymmetric information to find the Mafia optimal extortion as a function of firms’ observable characteristics, namely size and sector. We test the predictions of the model on a unique dataset on extortion in Sicily, the Italian region where the Sicilian Mafia, one of the most ancient criminal organizations, operates. In line with our theoretical model, our empirical findings show that extortion is strongly concave with respect to firm size and highly regressive. The percentage of profits appropriated by the Mafia ranges from 40% for small firms to 2% for large enterprises. We derive some implications of these findings for market structure and economic development.