Uniquely Local
Historical Self-Governance and Norms of Cooperation
Devesh Rustagi
Econometrica, forthcoming
Abstract:
Does self-governance, a hallmark of democratic societies, foster norms of generalized cooperation? Does this effect persist, and if so, why? I investigate these questions using a natural experiment in Switzerland. In the middle-ages, the absence of an heir resulted in the extinction of a prominent noble dynasty. As a result, some Swiss municipalities became self-governing, whereas the others remained under feudalism for another 600 years. Evidence from a behavioral experiment, World Values Survey, and Swiss Household Panel consistently shows that individuals from historically self-governing municipalities exhibit stronger norms of cooperation today. Referenda data on voter-turnout allow me to trace these effects on individually costly and socially beneficial actions for over 150 years. Furthermore, norms of cooperation map into prosocial behaviors like charitable giving and environmental protection. Uniquely, Switzerland tracks every family's place of origin in registration data, which I use to demonstrate persistence from cultural transmission in a context of historically low migration.
On the coevolution of individualism and institutions
Israel Eruchimovitch, Moti Michaeli & Assaf Sarid
Journal of Economic Growth, September 2024, Pages 391-432
Abstract:
To unravel the roots of the relationship between the individualism-collectivism dimension of culture (IC) and market-supporting institutions, we develop a model where the two interact and coevolve. IC and institutions are related indirectly via social organization: agents settle either in the Town, a loose organization where they work independently, or in the Clan, a cohesive organization where they engage in collective work. The town's relative economic potential positively affects the town's size and institutional quality. A larger town then renders society more individualistic, which attracts even more agents to the town and improves its institutional quality. The resulting positive feedback loop drives societies toward different steady states. If the town's relative economic potential is sufficiently high, the society converges to a steady state with a completely individualistic culture, high institutional quality, and a large town. Otherwise, the society converges to a steady state with a completely collectivistic culture, weak institutions, and a large clan. We conclude that contemporary IC and institutions exhibit path dependence and are thus related to the historical exogenous conditions in each region. Using current and historical data, we provide empirical evidence supporting our model. In addition, we apply the model to discuss the historical divergence between China and Europe.
Harmony in diplomacy, convergence in choices: Low fertility diffusion through Sino-Korean normalization
Seung-Hun Chung & Ahmad Shah Mobariz
Southern Economic Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
Does fertility preference spill over to other countries? This paper investigates the influence of South Korea's exceptionally low fertility rate on neighboring China, particularly the Korean Chinese community. Through an analysis of historical events, including the diplomatic restoration between China and South Korea in 1992, it examines how this reconciliation affected fertility and marriage rates among Korean Chinese. The findings reveal a notable decline in both fertility and marriage rates post-reconnection, suggesting a potential adoption of South Korea's fertility norms within the Korean Chinese community.
Culture shapes moral reasoning about close others
Chayce Baldwin et al.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, September 2024, Pages 2345-2358
Abstract:
Moral norms balance the needs of the group versus individuals, and societies across the globe vary in terms of the norms they prioritize. Extant research indicates that people from Western cultures consistently choose to protect (vs. punish) close others who commit crimes. Might this differ in cultural contexts that prioritize the self less? Prior research presents two compelling alternatives. On the one hand, collectivists may feel more intertwined with and tied to those close to them, thus protecting close others more. On the other hand, they may prioritize society over individuals and thus protect close others less. Four studies (N = 2,688) performed in the United States and Japan provide self-report, narrative, and experimental evidence supporting the latter hypothesis. These findings highlight how personal relationships and culture dynamically interact to shape how we think about important moral decisions.
On the Economic Origins of Concerns over Women's Chastity
Anke Becker
Review of Economic Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper studies the origins and function of customs and norms that intend to keep women from being promiscuous. Using large-scale survey data from more than 100 countries, I test the anthropological theory that a particular form of preindustrial subsistence -- pastoralism -- favored the adoption of such customs and norms. Pastoralism was characterized by frequent and often extended periods of male absence from the settlement, implying difficulties in monitoring women's behavior and larger incentives to imposing restrictions on women's promiscuity. The paper shows that women from historically more pastoral societies (i) are subject to stronger anti-abortion attitudes; (ii) are more likely to have undergone infibulation, the most invasive form of female genital cutting; (iii) are more restricted in their freedom of mobility; and (iv) adhere to more restrictive norms about women's promiscuity. At the historical society level, pastoralism predicts patrilocality, the custom of living close to the husband's family after marriage, allowing them to monitor the bride. Instrumental variable estimations that make use of the ecological determinants of pastoralism support a causal interpretation of the results. I also provide evidence that the mechanism behind these patterns is male absence, rather than male dominance, per se, or historical economic development.
The effect of plough agriculture on gender roles: A machine learning approach
Anna Baiardi & Andrea Naghi
Journal of Applied Econometrics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper undertakes a replication in a wide sense of a recent study that examines the relationship between historical plough agriculture and current gender roles. We revisit the main research question with recently developed causal machine learning methods, which allow researchers to model the relationship of covariates with the treatment and the outcomes in a more flexible way, while also including interactions and nonlinearities that were not considered in the original analysis. Our results suggest an even larger negative effect of the historical plough adoption on female labor force participation than what the original analysis found. The paper highlights the benefits of using causal machine learning methods in applied empirical economics.
Individualism and School Performance: Evidence from PISA Test Scores
Philipp Ehrl & Fabiana de Assis Alves
Journal of Human Capital, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper analyzes whether the cultural trait of individualism affects school performance by using Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) data. Our preferred empirical specification is an instrumental variable estimation with school fixed effects and individual control variables. We find that a 1 standard deviation higher individualism index is associated with an increase of between 19 and 36 score points in science, math, and reading tests, roughly equivalent to the content of 1.1-2.1 school years. The use of Hofstede's index or a derived individualism index from the PISA data leads to the same conclusions.
Does Twitter Data Mirror the European North-South Family Ties Divide? A Comparative Analysis of Tweets About Family
Sofia Gil-Clavel & Clara Mulder
Population Research and Policy Review, June 2024
Abstract:
Previous research on the relationship between geographical distance and the frequency of contact between family members has shown that the strength of family ties differs between Northern and Southern Europe. However, little is known about how family ties are reflected in peoples' conversations on social media, despite research showing the relevance of social media data for understanding users' daily expressions of emotions and thoughts based on their immediate experiences. This work investigates the question of whether Twitter use patterns in Europe mirror the North-South divide in the strength of family ties by analyzing potential differences in family-related tweets between users in Northern and Southern European countries. This study relies on a longitudinal database derived from Twitter collected between January 2012 and December 2016. We perform a comparative analysis of Southern and Northern European users' tweets using Bayesian generalized multilevel models together with the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software. We analyze the association between regional differences in the strength of family ties and patterns of tweeting about family. Results show that the North-South divide is reflected in the frequency of tweets that are about family, that refer to family in the past versus in the present tense, and that are about close versus extended family.
Mortality risk of loneliness: Culture matters
Jiyoung Park & Yiyi Zhu
Health Psychology, forthcoming
Method: Using a harmonized dataset from two individualistic (England and the United States) and two collectivistic (Korea and Mexico) countries (combined N = 41,869), we tested whether cultural contexts moderate the extent to which loneliness predicts 10-year all-cause mortality.
Results: After adjustment of demographic variables and health behaviors, loneliness was associated with increased 10-year mortality in all four countries, with hazard ratios (HRs) of 1.13 in England, 1.21 in the United States and Mexico, and 1.51 in Korea. When health conditions were additionally controlled, this association became negligible in two individualistic countries, with HRs of 0.98 for both England and the United States. In contrast, the HR remained highly significant in Korea (HR = 1.27). Curiously, the mortality risk of loneliness in Mexico (HR = 1.03), another collectivistic country, was no different from the risks in England and the United States.
Individualism and the legal status of prostitution
Lewis Davis & Astghik Mavisakalyan
Journal of Comparative Economics, September 2024, Pages 714-732
Abstract:
We know very little about why the legal status of prostitution varies across countries. Drawing on central arguments in the normative literature on the legal status of prostitution, in which a central argument concerns the sexual and bodily autonomy of women, we ask whether a country's position on the individualism-collectivism affects the legal status of prostitution. We investigate this question using a panel of 61 countries, finding a robust positive relationship between individualism and the legality of prostitution. In the baseline model, a one-standard deviation increase in individualism is associated with a ten percentage point increase in the likelihood that prostitution is legal. This relationship is robust to controls for institutional structure, other dimensions of culture, and measures of women's economic status and historical patriarchy. It is also robust to the use of instrumental variable analysis to address issues of endogeneity and measurement error. Our results also shed light on two additional aspects of the normative debate over legal prostitution. In particular, we find that prostitution is more likely to be legal in countries in which women enjoy greater economic status, but we fail to find a consistent empirical relationship between historical patriarchy and legal prostitution.
Beyond the War: Public Service and the Transmission of Gender Norms
Abhay Aneja, Silvia Farina & Guo Xu
NBER Working Paper, June 2024
Abstract:
This paper combines personnel records of the U.S. federal government with census data to study how shocks to the gender composition of a large organization can persistently shift gender norms. Exploiting city-by-department variation in the sudden expansion of female clerical employment driven by World War I, we find that daughters of civil servants exposed to female co-workers are more likely to work later in life, command higher income, and have fewer children. These intergenerational effects increase with the size of the city-level exposure to female government workers and are driven by daughters in their teenage years at the time of exposure. We also show that cities exposed to a larger increase in female federal workers saw persistently higher female labor force participation in the public sector, as well as modest contemporaneous increases in private sector labor force participation suggestive of spill-overs. Collectively, the results are consistent with both the vertical and horizontal transmission of gender norms and highlight how increasing gender representation within the public sector can have broader labor market implications.