Culture, Institutions & the Long Divergence

Alberto Bisin, Jared Rubin, Avner Seror, Thierry Verdier and Thierry Verdier
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Thierry A. Verdier

No 8900, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Recent theories of the Long Divergence between Middle Eastern and Western European economies focus on Middle Eastern (over-)reliance on religious legitimacy, use of slave soldiers, and persistence of restrictive proscriptions of religious (Islamic) law. These theories take as exogenous the cultural values that complement the prevailing institutions. As a result, they miss the role of cultural values in either supporting the persistence of or inducing change in the economic and institutional environment. In this paper, we address these issues by modeling the joint evolution of institutions and culture. In doing so, we place the various hypotheses of economic divergence into one, unifying framework. We highlight the role that cultural transmission plays in reinforcing institutional evolution toward either theocratic or secular states. We extend the model to shed light on political decentralization and technological change in the two regions.

Keywords: long divergence; cultural transmission; institutions; legitimacy; religion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N34 N35 O10 O33 P16 P48 Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro, nep-his, nep-isf and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp8900.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Culture, Institutions & the Long Divergence (2021)
Working Paper: Culture, Institutions & the Long Divergence (2021)
Working Paper: Culture, Institutions & the Long Divergence (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8900

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klaus Wohlrabe ().