A History of Violence : The Culture of Honor and Homicide in the US South Pauline Grosjean

According to the culture of honor hypothesis, the high prevalence of homicides in the South of the United States originates from the settlement by herders from the fringes of Britain in the 18th century. This paper confirms that historical Scot or Scots-Irish presence is associated with higher contemporary homicide, particularly by white offenders, and that the culture of honor was transmitted to subsequent generations; but only in the South and, more generally, where historical institutional quality was low. The interpretation is that the culture of honor prevailed and persisted as an adaptive behavior to weak institutions. The influence of the culture of honor is also found to be fading over time. The results are robust to controlling for a large number of historical and contemporary factors and state fixed effects as well as to the use of instrumental variables for historical settlements and for the quality of historical formal institutions. The results are also specific to a particular type of homicide and background of settlers.