This paper examines, theoretically and empirically, the impact of reproductive externalities on fertility behaviour in Kenya. We examine this issue by identifying structural forms of social interaction operating across individuals belonging to di¤erent ethnic groups on the number of children ever born. We use the 1998 Demographic and Health Survey data on 5994 women from Kenya to examine whethe...

Peers, Neighborhoods and Immigrant Student Achievement: Evidence from a Placement Policy Immigrants typically perform worse than other students in the OECD countries. We examine to what extent this is due to the population characteristics of the neighborhoods that immigrants grow up in. We address this issue using a governmental refugee placement policy which provides exogenous variation in the...

We report experimental results for a twice-played prisoners’ dilemma in which the players can choose the allocation of the stakes across the two periods. Our point of departure is the assumption that some (but not all) people are willing to cooperate, as long as their opponent is sufficiently likely to do so. The presence of such types can be exploited to enhance cooperation by structuring the ...

Cross-Nativity Marriages and Human Capital Levels of Children A common perception about immigrant assimilation is that association with natives necessarily speeds the process by which immigrants become indistinguishable from natives. Using 2000 Census data, this paper casts doubt on this presumption by examining the effect of an immigrant’s marriage to a native, a measure of social integration,...

Top‐Down vs. Bottom‐Up: The Long‐Term Impact of Government Ideology and Personal Experience on Values This paper studies the long‐term impact of societal socialization on values using the example of doping behavior in sports. We apply the German Reunification Approach to the microcosm of Berlin and exploit its 40‐year long division into a capitalist and a communist sector. We deliberately chose...

JEL Classification: Z13 Social sanction can substitute for the rule of law, particularly in communities where there are repeat interactions and where there is full information about past actions. The expectation of finacial boycotts or social shunning provides an incentive for reducing malfeasance. We construct a rich micro panel data set of U.S. Civil War soldiers from pro-war and anti-war com...

In public good provision, privileged groups enjoy the advantage that some of its members find it optimal to supply a positive amount of the public good. However, their inherent asymmetric nature may make the enforcement of cooperative behavior through informal sanctioning harder to accomplish. In this paper we experimentally investigate public good provision in normal and privileged groups with...

We consider general economies in which rational agents interact locally. The local aspect of the interactions is designed to represent in a simple abstract way social interactions, that is, socioeconomic environments in which markets do not mediate all of agents’ choices, which might be in part determined, for instance, by family, peer group, or ethnic group effects. We study static as well as ...

In history and in everyday life it has often been observed that on one hand religion can enhance peaceful behaviour, but that it can on the other hand as well lead to violent extremism and intolerance. This paper argues with the help of a simple theoretical con‡ict model that the level of education matters crucially for the impact religion has on the likelihood of con‡ict. In particular, in a l...

Over the last couple of decades, it has become a commonplace to claim that “institutions matter” for economic development. Yet, institutions are not exogenous but the result of human action. It is argued here that the values and norms held by substantial parts of society’s members are an important determinant of its institutions. It is further argued that values and norms have both a direct and...