SECULARIZATION AND LONG‐RUN ECONOMIC GROWTH

This paper integrates a simple theory of identity choice into a framework of endogenous economic growth to explain how secularization can be both cause and consequence of economic development. A secular identity allows an individual to derive more pleasure from consumption than religious individuals, leading secular individuals to work harder and to save more in order to experience this pleasure from consumption. These activities are conducive to economic growth. Higher income makes consumption more affordable and increases the appeal of a secular identity for the next generation. An extension of the basic model investigates the Protestant Reformation as an intermediate stage during the take‐off to growth. Another extension introduces intergenerationally dependent religious preferences and demonstrates how a social multiplier amplifies the speed of secularization. (JEL N30, O10, O40, Z12, Z13)     

DYNASTIC POLITICAL PRIVILEGE AND ELECTORAL ACCOUNTABILITY: THE CASE OF U.S. GOVERNORS, 1950–2005

This paper examines the impact of dynastic political privilege on the behavior of incumbents. Incumbents have opportunities to serve themselves at the expense of voters, but society can design political institutions to mitigate these principal‐agent problems. Dynastic political privilege may be one such mechanism. We argue that the possibility that opportunistic behavior in office may damage family members' political prospects disciplines incumbents. We test this hypothesis using data for 1950–2005 on U.S. governors, including a new data set on the family relationships of politicians, and find that dynastic political privilege increases incumbent accountability. (JEL H71, H10)     

THE MATCHING OF HETEROGENEOUS FIRMS AND POLITICIANS

We use a Chinese firm‐director panel dataset to examine the matching of heterogeneous firms and politicians. On the basis of 36,308 detailed biographies, we identify individuals who previously held bureaucratic positions and classify the rank of each position in the Chinese political hierarchy. Using this direct measure of political capital, we examine how firms with heterogeneous productivity match politicians with different political strength. Our results indicate a positive assortative matching in the political capital market. More productive firms are paired with more powerful politicians. Furthermore, the preference for political capital relative to conventional human capital increases in firms' dependence on external financing and the inefficiency of local governments. Conditional on the endogenous matching, new hires with political capital receive more compensation than their co‐workers in the same cohort. The marginal effect of a one‐step rise on the political ladder significantly exceeds the marginal effect of raising education attainment from, for example, high school to college. (JEL D21, D73, J24, J31, O12)     

PERSISTENCE OF POLITICIANS AND FIRMS' INNOVATION

We empirically investigate whether the persistence of politicians in political institutions affects the innovation activity of firms. We use 12,000 firm‐level observations from three waves of the Italian Observatory over Small and Medium Enterprises, and introduce a measure of political persistence defined as the average length of individual political careers in political institutions of Italian municipalities. Using death of politicians as an exogenous source of variation of political persistence, we find a robust negative relation between political persistence and the probability of process innovation. This finding is consistent with the view that political stability may hinder firms' incentive to innovate to maintain their competitiveness, as long as they can extract rents from long‐term connections with politicians. (JEL D22, D72, O31)     

DEBT BAILOUTS AND CONSTITUTIONS

A demand‐based theory of subnational debt bailouts is presented. It is shown that demand for bailouts among politicians with regional constituencies is affected by revenue sharing arrangements as a bailout implies a shift of taxation toward the federal tier. Automatic revenue sharing may lead to the formation of pro‐bailout coalitions formed by indebted states and states that are net recipients of the revenue sharing arrangement. The model shows that the state debt bailouts approved by the Brazilian Senate prior to the enactment of the Fiscal Responsibility Act were consistent with politicians who maximize the proceeds accruing to their constituencies. (JEL H70, D70)     

ELECTORAL CONTRIBUTIONS AND THE COST OF UNPOPULARITY

When considering electoral campaigns, candidates receiving contributions from relatively unpopular industries should be regarded less favorably by voters that have information on the sources of funding. To offset this unpopularity effect, politicians may either demand more money for campaign advertising from these industries in order to persuade less informed voters, or shy away from unpopular contributors to avoid losing the support of the informed electorate. Our model predicts that the first effect dominates, and electoral contributions are increasing in industry unpopularity. By using U.S. House elections data and different identification strategies, we provide robust evidence in favor of our predictions. (JEL D72, P16)     

DEMOCRACY AND GROWTH: A PERSPECTIVE FROM DEMOCRATIC EXPERIENCE

This article investigates the impact of democracy on growth by simultaneously considering a country's secular‐historical experience of democracy and current political regime. The results obtained show that the effect of democracy on growth exhibits an asymmetrical pattern depending on the country's democracy stock. Only in “democratic countries” with “prolonged experiences of democratic rule” can democracy promote growth. This claim stands in contrast to the earlier literature in which there is either no consistent relationship between growth and democracy or perhaps a nonlinear relationship. This conclusion provides circumstantial support for the claim of the “democracy promotes growth” hypothesis. (JEL O43)     

Evaluating phase movement theory with the dramatis personae of time: 1923–1988

Parsons and Bales maintain that the temporal organization of a group's activities is characterized by a periodic swing between internal and external imperatives. The phase hypothesis holds that at the societal level phases characterized by an emphasis on solving external problems will be accompanied by economic prosperity. Temporal organization is also characterized by adaptive upgrading in response to environmental demands and a concomitant secular trend, or increasingly external focus. To test these hypotheses, 3,209 roles featured on the cover of Time magazine from 1923 to 1988 were classified as either internal (educators, mass media, entertainers, athletes, celebrities, private interest group leaders, religious leaders, and labor leaders) or external (politicians, public interest group leaders, military, administrators, scientists, and foreigners). A Phase Index was determined by the proportion of external roles. The level of business activity was established by the Cleveland Trust Company's “American Business Activity” index. While Henry Luce was editor‐in‐chief of Time (1923–1967), the phase and business cycles were correlated at +.58 (p <.01), and for the 60‐year period from 1923 to 1988 the correlation was +.468 (p = .001). Lagged values of the Phase Index produced steadily increasing correlations with business activity, from a seven‐year lag (r = ‐0.048) to a maximum correlation of +0.485 with a two‐year lag, suggesting that the Phase Index is a two‐year leading indicator of the business cycle. The trend hypothesis was evaluated by regression analysis. An increase in the proportion of external roles from 1923 to 1988 was found to be significant (Y = 63.5 + .151(X), p = .0052). Increasing numbers of “villain” roles suggest that high levels of external activity in the 1970s and 1980s may be creating internal problems. These strains may be a sign of transition from an external to an internal phase. These data are interpreted as supporting Parsons and Bales’ phase and trend hypotheses.     

FIRMS AND FLEXIBILITY

The United States and France have very similar labor productivity levels while there are considerable differences between the firm‐size distributions and firm dynamics in the two countries. To reconcile these observations we introduce a joint model of endogenous entrepreneurship and firm‐size dynamics with firing costs, unemployment benefits, entry costs, and a tax wedge between wages and labor costs. We use our model to analyze the role of these rigitidies in explaining firm dynamics and productivity patterns in the United States and France. We find that our model with all rigidities goes a long way in accounting for firm‐size differentials between the United States and France while generating similar labor productivity outcomes. (JEL C78, D21, E24, J6)     

EXCHANGE RATE REGIMES AND FISCAL DISCIPLINE: THE ROLE OF CAPITAL CONTROLS

How do exchange rate regimes influence fiscal discipline? This important question has typically been addressed exploiting the classic dichotomy of fixed versus flexible exchange rate regimes assuming perfect capital mobility. However, the role of capital controls cannot be neglected, particularly in developing countries. This paper analyzes the effects of capital controls on fiscal performance by focusing on dual exchange rate regimes. In a model in which the fiscal policy is endogenously determined by a nonbenevolent fiscal authority, dual regimes induce politicians to have higher fiscal deficits than under fixed and flexible regimes operating under perfect capital mobility. The model also shows this effect increases as fiscal authorities become more impatient. Dynamic panel regressions confirm that dual regimes lead to higher fiscal deficits than fixed and flexible regimes operating under unified rates. Using a dummy for pre‐electoral year as an indicator of fiscal authorities' shortsightedness, we also confirm that dual exchange rate has a more adverse effect on fiscal deficits as the authorities become more impatient. (JEL E50, E60, F31, F41)     

POLITICAL IDEOLOGY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: EVIDENCE FROM THE FRENCH DEMOCRACY

We provide a test of the impact of voters' political ideology on economic growth and of the role of preferences for government size as a transmission channel. We focus on France from the beginning of its stable democratic experience in 1871. A move of voters' ideology to the right increases economic growth over the total observation period. However, the growth effect of ideology is mediated by voters' preferences for government size only during the post‐World War II period. For reverse causality concerns, we use the political ideology of other historical democracies as an instrument variable for France's ideology. (JEL E6, O43, H11)     

Entwurf einer Theorie religiös-säkularer Konkurrenz

This article presents the basic elements of a theory of religious secular competition. The theory claims that individuals in many societies may choose between religious and secular options, creating a situation of competition between religious and secular organizations. The paper assumes (bounded) rationality for individuals and organizations and describes religious and secular organizations, religious and secular goods, as well as three important parameters that influence religious secular competition: regulation of supply, regulation of demand and level of societal modernization. The theory of religious secular competition explains a whole range of different phenomena, such as variations in church going in US states, variation in the attractivity of monasteries, the late secularization of Ireland, the strong religiosity of agrarian societies or the success of megachurches since the 1960s.     

PERCEIVED GAME UNCERTAINTY,SUSPENSE AND THE DEMAND FOR SPORT

This study tries bridging between different behavioral economic explanations for the lack of support of the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis in spectator sports. We test a measure of perceived game uncertainty that is comparable to objective measures frequently tested in the literature. Econometric results suggest that fans do not perceive closeness of a game differently than how economists have tended to measure it. However, fans' perceptions of suspensefulness are distinct from their perceptions of game uncertainty. Moreover, the finding that fans' preferences for game uncertainty are dominated by loss aversion also emerges—independently of fanship status—in our stated‐preference setting. (JEL L83, D12, Z2)     

Association between femininity and women voters political trust in Pakistan

Political trust has been researched extensively since long in the sociology of politics. However, feminine attributes are rarely tested against political trust, especially in developing countries such as Pakistan. The present research explores the association of feminine attributes possessed by rural women with different attributes of political trust in politicians. A total of 414 registered women voters were recruited through a multistage sampling technique from selected tehsils of Punjab Province, Pakistan. The data were collected through an interview schedule, processed through SPSS (21.0), and presented in a tabular format. Pearson R correlation was applied to find out the association between hypothesized variables. The findings suggest that emotionality is significantly correlated with performance, ability, and the conduct of politicians (r = .302, r = .267, r = ?.216, p < .01). Feminine purity is significantly correlated with performance and the ability of politicians (r = .309, r = .202, p < .01). Feminine stereotypical image is significantly correlated with performance and the ability of politicians (r = .174, r = .196, p < .01). Traditional gender relations in the society need to be looked at carefully to realize the true potential of women in terms of their political participation.     

Dissonant Notes on the Post‐Secular: Unthinking Secularization in Global Historical Sociology

The article criticizes the assumption that modernity is a rupture in time and space conceivable in terms of the coming of a secular age. It tackles Habermas concept of ‘post‐secular’ and denotes it as an attempt to provide new foundations to modernization narratives, in postmodern terms; it discusses Blumenberg's idea of secularization and questions the historical ontogenesis of what Blumenberg thinks of in terms of the transition to the modern age; it further elaborates on Wang Hui analysis of the relation between Western science and the role of China in global modernity. Secularization and the post‐secular, it is argued, re‐frame narratives of the disenchantment within a western geocultural ideology of western superiority.     

THE EXTENT OF THE MARKET AND INTEGRATION THROUGH FACTOR MARKETS: EVIDENCE FROM WHOLESALE ELECTRICITY

We document the influence of factor markets in determining the extent of the market, appealing to the Mundell hypothesis that trade in goods and factor markets are substitutes. We confirm this influence using the U.S. wholesale market for electric power. Although the Eastern, Western, and Texas regions cannot trade electricity, inputs such as natural gas move freely across these regions. Through a set of price transmission ratios, and a supply model for natural gas, we find regional electricity shocks do propagate across regions. We conclude output markets institutionally in autarky achieve modest degrees of economic integration through factor markets. (JEL C32, L94, Q41)     

De-publicized secularization and contemporary Chinese mass culture

This article attempts to distinguish two kinds of secularization and mass culture in contemporary China by creatively deploying Hannah Arendt, Jurgen Habermas and other western thinkers’ theories of secularization and modernity. It argues that, in the 1980s, China underwent a first process of secularization: that was characterized by liberating a secular society from the quasi-religious totalitarianism of the Cultural Revolution through the re-establishment of a civic society, which integrated individualism and publicness, with awareness of individual rights and rights for participation. The participation of new and self-disciplined rational individuals, who were concerned with pubic interests and issues. This essay takes Teresea Teng's popular songs as an important example of this first kind of secularization, as an attempt to demonstrate how the mass culture of the 1980s actively contributed to the construction of this new publicness. Since the 1990s, however, another kind of secularization emerged, one that did not care about the public world and others, but instead about material enjoyment and intimate private matters. Different from the religious path, this represents a way of abandoning the public world: it takes the form of a retreat into bodily/physiological happiness and one's secluded private world, leading to the development of a morbid narcissistic personality. This essay argues that these two kinds of secularization are the foundation and the starting point for us to understand the political effects of two kinds of mass culture.     

PROTESTANTISM AND EDUCATION: READING (THE BIBLE) AND OTHER SKILLS

During industrialization, Protestants were more literate than Catholics. This paper investigates whether this fact may be led back to the intrinsic motivation of Protestants to read the bible and to what extent other education motives might have been involved as well. We employ a historical data set from Switzerland which allows us to differentiate between different cognitive skills: reading, numeracy, essay writing, and Swiss history. We develop an estimation strategy to examine whether the impact of religious denomination was particularly large with respect to reading capabilities. We find support for this hypothesis. However, we also find evidence which is consistent with the view that Protestants' education motives went beyond acquiring reading skills. (JEL I20)     

A Disputed Truth. Defending Emmanuel Todd’s Approach of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Je suis Charlie</Emphasis>

In May 2015, Emmanuel Todd published Qui est Charlie? Sociologie d’une crise religieuse, a radical analysis of France’s current political state. The central claim of Todd’s book is the idea that the “Je suis Charlie” demonstrations of January 2015 showed how French politics are dominated by a hidden “religious crisis”. Todd posits that there are two France [not unlike the red states and blue states in the U.S.] and that the traditionally right-wing, catholic, inegalitarian France has gone through a crisis with its recent secularization. For Todd, the fall of Catholicism in the “inegalitarian” France has caused the rise of a pro-european “zombie Catholicism” obsessed with secularism to the point of being islamophobic. The book stirred an intense controversy in the mainstream press. In June, Anne Verjus published a series of research notes defending Emmanuel Todd (http://reflexivites.hypotheses.org/7240). This article is a compilation, edition and translation of her research notes. Anne Verjus defends the method used by Emmanuel Todd, addresses the main criticism received by the book and laments the state of current academia in the way it responded to “a disputed truth”.     

GENDER AND THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF EDUCATION

Does education improve health more for one sex than the other? We develop a theory of resource substitution which implies that education improves health more for women than men. Data from a 1995 survey of U.S. adults with follow‐ups in 1998 and 2001 support the hypothesis. Physical impairment decreases more for women than for men as the level of education increases. The gender gap in impairment essentially disappears among people with a college degree. Latent growth SEM vectors also show that among the college educated, men's and women's life course patterns of physical impairment do not differ significantly.