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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
The Cultural Transmission Of Trust Norms: Evidence From A Lab In The Field On A Natural Experiment, Elira Karaja, Jared Rubin
The Cultural Transmission Of Trust Norms: Evidence From A Lab In The Field On A Natural Experiment, Elira Karaja, Jared Rubin
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
We conduct trust games in three villages in a northeastern Romanian commune. From 1775–1919, these villages were arbitrarily assigned to opposite sides of the Austrian and Ottoman/Russian border despite being located seven kilometers apart. This plausibly exogenous border assignment affected local institutions and late-18th century migration in a manner that likely also affected trust. Conditional on trust norms being affected by these centuries-old historical circumstances, our experimental design tests the degree to which such norms are transmitted intergenerationally. Consistent with theoretical predictions, we find that participants on the Austrian side that also have family roots in the village are indeed …
A Network Of Thrones: Kinship And Conflict In Europe, 1495–1918, Seth G. Benzell, Kevin Cooke
A Network Of Thrones: Kinship And Conflict In Europe, 1495–1918, Seth G. Benzell, Kevin Cooke
Economics Faculty Articles and Research
We construct a database linking European royal kinship networks, monarchies, and wars to study the effect of family ties on conflict. To establish causality, we exploit decreases in connection caused by apolitical deaths of rulers' mutual relatives. These deaths are associated with substantial increases in the frequency and duration of war. We provide evidence that these deaths affect conflict only through changing the kinship network. Over our period of interest, the percentage of European monarchs with kinship ties increased threefold. Together, these findings help explain the well-documented decrease in European war frequency.