Local Legacies
Revisiting the Ancient Origins of Gender Inequality
Trung Vu
Journal of Applied Econometrics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study re-examines the long-term effect of traditional plough use on contemporary gender roles, as originally advanced by Alesina, Giuliano and Nunn [Quarterly Journal of Economics (2013) Vol. 128, pp. 469-530]. The findings demonstrate that the reduced-form relationship between historical plough adoption and female empowerment is robust to implementing a falsification test, using alternative proxies for gender roles, and accounting for potential selection bias from unobservables and spatial dependence. Additional evidence indicates that ancestral plough adoption reinforced the persistence of gender-biased norms, reflected in oral traditions, that continue to shape present-day gender inequality. However, the intergenerational transmission of these norms is weaker in societies whose ancestors were exposed to unstable climatic environments between 500 and 1900 CE, suggesting that ancestral instability constrained the cultural persistence of plough-induced gender roles.
The linguistic driver of divorce
Zeng Lian, Donald Lien & Jiawei Sun
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, January 2026
Abstract:
This study investigates the impact of pro-drop language usage on divorce behaviours and attitudes. Using country-level divorce data and individual responses from the World Values Survey, we find that pro-drop speakers are less likely to be divorced and express lower support for divorce. These patterns hold after controlling for linguistic, cultural, and agro-climatic factors, and persist in within-country and matched-sample analyses. Mechanism analysis shows that while pro-drop aligns with collectivist values that discourage divorce, its association with divorce attitudes is only partly explained by them. Evidence from second-generation immigrants links parental exposure to pro-drop with children’s views on divorce, suggesting intergenerational influence of linguistic environments. The findings highlight the role of grammar in familial outcomes and offer insights for policymakers designing linguistically informed policy nudges.
Culture and gender differences in honesty
Caroline Graf, Andreas Pondorfer & Jonathan Schulz
Economic Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
Gender differences in preferences play a crucial role in shaping economic outcomes. This study examines cross-societal variation in gender differences in honesty, testing whether they reflect innate traits or are shaped by social norms. Using global experimental and survey data, we find that gender differences in honesty emerge primarily in Western societies, where women report stronger honesty norms than men, while such differences are absent in non-Western societies. Additional evidence shows that gender differences in honesty norms are transmitted across generations and narrow as countries become wealthier. These patterns suggest that gender differences in honesty are better explained by socialization rather than innate traits.
Fortune favors the bold and patient: How economic freedom impacts economic preferences
Ryan Kitzan, Adam Stivers & Nabamita Dutta
Contemporary Economic Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
We investigate the relationship between economic freedom and individual economic preferences, particularly patience and risk tolerance. While patience has been found to result in beneficial outcomes, the findings on the effects of risk tolerance are mixed. Therefore, we investigate the relationship between national levels of patience and risk taking in the presence of varying economic institutions. Our findings suggest that countries with both higher economic freedom and higher risk tolerance also exhibit greater levels of patience. Further, higher levels of risk tolerance do not equate to higher levels of patience in countries with low levels of economic freedom.
Gender differences in social networks under subsistence changes
Yaming Huang et al.
Evolution and Human Behavior, January 2026
Abstract:
Sexual selection theory suggests that gendered social strategies are universal outcomes of reproductive competition, yet recent cross-cultural studies show that these strategies are shaped by socio-ecological factors although they remain insufficiently examined. In particular, little is known about how gendered strategies adapt during periods of rapid social and economic changes. To this end, we examine gender differences in scale and composition of ego-networks, guided by two main hypotheses: that gender roles are shaped by (i) market participation, and (ii) post-marital residence pattern. Using data from 1169 married women and men across 14 Tibetan villages undergoing economic and kinship-system transitions, we applied Bayesian multilevel models to analyse core social relationships. Our findings show that, as men increase their participation in market economies, their networks become more kin-centred -- strengthening biological kin ties while loosening friend ties -- reflecting an instrumental restructuring of social relationships in response to changing economic roles. In contrast, women's networks remain largely unaffected, likely reflecting the persistence of caregiving responsibilities and strong local embeddedness. Post-marital residence patterns impose comparable trade-offs for both sexes: philopatric individuals prioritise biological kin, while affinal kin can effectively substitute for natal relatives when biological kin become less accessible, forming a balanced, bilateral cooperative network that integrates both kin types. This study underscores that women sustain stable and cohesive social ties across socio-economic transitions, while men adapt their networks more flexibly in response to shifting economic roles.
Chilling Sunsets: Climate Distances and Later-Life Mortality of Immigrants
Hamid Noghanibehambari & Jason Fletcher
Environmental and Resource Economics, December 2025, Pages 3367-3396
Abstract:
Previous research suggests that immigrants sort into environments that resemble their country of origin. However, fewer studies have examined whether this similarity/dissimilarity affects health outcomes. In this paper, we address this question using Social Security Administration death records linked to the full count 1940 census. We explore the effect of temperature distance, i.e. the difference between the average temperature of an immigrant’s birth country and US county of residence, during midlife on later-life longevity. We find that a 5.5 °C change in temperature distance, equivalent to the mean of the sample, is associated with 3.3 months lower longevity. We find that these effects are largely driven by low-educated individuals and those in weather-related occupations for whom climate-specific skills play an important role. Further, we find comparable effects when we turn our focus on cross-county internal migrants of US-born individuals. We discuss the policy implication of these results in light of expected climate-driven migration in the population of immigrants in the US population in the coming decades.
Courageous but Indebted? Regional Courage Is Associated With Higher Debt-to-Income Ratio in the United States
Jali Packer, Joe Gladstone & Friedrich Götz
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Geographic disparities in household indebtedness present an economic puzzle that traditional models inadequately explain. We examine whether regional psychological traits -- specifically courage -- help explain these differences. Analyzing data from 836,184 individuals across 1,220 U.S. counties, we tested whether areas with higher collective courage (willingness to act despite fear) exhibit higher debt-to-income ratios. Using spatial regression techniques to account for geographic clustering and controlling for sociodemographic factors and Big Five personality traits, we found that courage significantly predicted county-level debt-to-income ratios. A one standard deviation increase in regional courage was associated with a 0.22 standard deviation increase in debt-to-income -- an effect that persisted across different geographic scales and modeling approaches. Courage hotspots in western and southern regions showed corresponding patterns of higher indebtedness. These findings reveal that psychological traits traditionally viewed as virtuous may have unintended economic consequences, highlighting the importance of considering regional psychology when designing financial policies and interventions.
Understanding legal origins: On the determinants and impact of legal traditions
Carmine Guerriero
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, January 2026
Abstract:
To shed light on the determinants and impact of legal traditions, I evaluate the idea that the uncertain common law can prevail over the certain civil law only when sufficiently heterogeneous legal preferences and/or sufficiently inefficient political institutions encourage the legislator to bias statutes in order to favor special interests. Operationally, I focus on 51 transplants for which I observe over the 1945–2005 period the evolution of the legal tradition, economic outcomes, control variables and the product of the time-varying population share of the ethnic group that was the largest at independence and either its long-lived norms of self-reliance or its genetic distance to the group that was the largest at independence in the exogenously assigned legal origin. These last two variables constitute time-varying proxies for, respectively, the transplant’s aversion to inefficient political institutions and the differences between the transplant’s legal preferences and those of its origin. Consistent with the testable predictions, reforms towards institutions typical of a pure common law legal tradition are found where genetic distance is the largest and a culture of self-reliance is the weakest. Moreover, not only did these reforms encourage stock market capitalization while curbing the unemployment rate in the developing transplants with the most heterogeneous legal preferences, but they also amplified labor market inefficiencies in developing transplants displaying the strongest norms of self-reliance.
Birth of a Language in the Backlands of Brazil
Anderson Almeida-Silva et al.
Cognitive Science, December 2025
Abstract:
It is assumed that in order to acquire a language, children must be exposed to a language during the critical period, which generally lasts until puberty. Here, we report on Cena, an emergent sign language that has developed among a small group of deaf people in an isolated town in the state of Piauí, Brazil. Starting three generations ago, it has developed into a fully functioning communicative system with all characteristics of a typical human language even though Cena developed in a linguistic vacuum. What makes Cena interesting is that we are reasonably certain that Cena had no external input from the national sign language, Libras, or any other language during its formation. Cena challenges the assumption that to acquire the first language, the child must be exposed to a fully developed language. It developed from homesigns to an emergent sign language that is used for all aspects of village life. Cena also lends credence to the interactional model of language acquisition, which considers the interactions between the child and the caregivers to be the crucial element. The nativist model of language acquisition, which assumes a universal system underlying language, also plays a part. Through interaction, what arose is a system with characteristics essential to all human language.