Should Egalitarians Expropriate Philanthropists? Wealthy individuals often voluntarily provide public goods that the poor also consume. Such philanthropy is perceived as legitimizing one’s wealth. Governments routinely exempt the rich from taxation on grounds of their charitable expenditure. We examine the normative logic of this exemption. We show that, rather than reducing it, philanthropy ma...

We study the co-evolution of social participation and social capital accumulation, taking the view that the former contributes to the latter, and both contribute to socially enjoyed leisure. We show that a process of substitution of private for social activities (observable in some advanced, affluent economies), might be self-reinforcing and lead to a Pareto-dominated steady state. We find some...

We model virtue as an asset on the marriage market: since men value virginity in prospective mates, preserving their virtue increases girls’ chances of getting a "good" husband, and therefore allows for upward social mobility. Consistent with some historical and anthropological evidence, we find that the diffusion (and the social value) of virginity, across societies and over time, can be deter...

While interest in social determinants of individual behavior has led to a rich theoretical literature and many efforts to measure these influences, a mature “social econometrics” has yet to emerge. This chapter provides a critical overview of the identification of social interactions. We consider linear and discrete choice models as well as social networks structures. We also consider experimen...

The theory of linguistic relativity—the idea that our language influences our thinking— has a long history in the humanities. Speakers of different languages may systematically think and behave differently. This phenomenon has only recently attracted attention from economists. This paper provides the first comprehensive review of this nascent literature. First we explain the linguistic relativi...

Does the lack of peers contribute to the observed gender gap in entrepreneurial success? A random sample of customers of India’s largest women’s bank was offered two days of business counseling, and a random subsample was invited to attend with a friend. The intervention significantly increased participants’ business activity, but only if they were trained with a friend. Those trained with a fr...

In this study I present experimental evidence of a novel channel yielding inequality persistence. In an initial experiment, results suggest that individuals respond to salient inequality by adjusting their performance beliefs to justify the inequality. Subsequent experiments reveal: i) that it is beliefs about relative ability—an ostensibly stable trait— rather than effort provision that respon...

We study how more negative historical exposure to the actions of nation-states—like war, occupation, and repression—affects formation regional identity. The quasi-exogenous division French regions Alsace Lorraine allows us implement a geographical regression discontinuity design at municipal level. Using measures stated revealed preferences, we find that experiences with nation-states are assoc...

We study whether and how peer referrals increase screening, testing, identification of patients with tuberculosis, an infectious disease responsible for over one million deaths annually. In experiment 3,176 at 122 tuberculosis treatment centers in India, we find that small financial incentives raise the probability existing refer prospective screening resulting cost-effective new cases. Incenti...

While the Earth system is in overshoot mode with an imminent threat to our social, ecological, and economic systems, cultural evolutionary theory may hold key more successfully addressing many of sustainability challenges. With aim illuminating potential studying evolution a sustainable bioeconomy through lens, this article outlines contours novel research avenue form five propositions. It cont...