Family, Kinship and Community

This presentation reviews and summaries results from research done under RA4 research theme of our programme.

Whether in the four case study countries or in the successful development stories of South Korea and Taiwan at the time when they were at a comparable level of income per capita, the issue of development consists of providing the…

In developing countries with strongly patriarchal norms, the socio-economic opportunities and choices of adolescent girls and young women often lie in a contested area, subject to the influence of both traditional institutions and the modern state and its partners. While…

We develop an approach to understand the role of autocratic land reforms to prevent democratic change. The autocrat confiscates and redistributes land in an attempt to secure his power, exploiting the endogenous social identities and loyalty in the population. The…

We document the following dissimilarity between patterns of selection into entrepreneurship and into exporting among Chinese entrepreneurs. Birth counties with higher population density (PD) exhibited higher levels and growth of entrepreneurship, but a lower fraction of active entrepreneurs were engaged…

This paper provides micro evidence for one mechanism behind the dramatically different political responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, namely how an increase in the perceived risk of Covid-19 among individuals stemming from past exposure to similar health crises generates citizen demand for containment measures.

While political dynasties are pervasive across developing countries we have limited knowledge of their impact on economic development. We probe this in a context where electoral politics is both competitive and clientelist. Leveraging novel databases on political genealogies and local…

In this paper, we estimate the impact of dynastic families on local development in Pakistan’s largest province, Punjab. Toward this purpose,we compile an original database on political genealogies, which includes information aboutthe personal and family characteristics of both elected representatives…

Throughout history, Rulers have always faced challenges to their rule. These challenges came either from outside aggressors, popular uprisings or Elite conspiracies. The ability of Rulers to respond to these challenges has varied a lot across countries and across time….

Abstract: Historical narratives suggest that general differences exist in the power structure of society between Imperial China and Premodern Europe: the Ruler enjoyed a weaker absolute power in Europe, while in China the People were more on par with the…

Abstract: This document is the second of two progress reports that provide an overview of the progress made on the DFID RA4 project “Social structures, political accountability, and effective public goods provision.” Our study is interested in better understanding how…

Abstract: Gangs govern millions worldwide. Why rule, and how do they respond to states? Many argue that criminal rule provides protection when states do not, and that increasing state services could crowd gangs out. We began by interviewing leaders from…

Abstract: We study the role of traditional institutions of tribes and clans – large groups of people sharing an identity based on common lineage – in determining long-run differences in economic trajectories at sub-national level. Using a combination of rich…

Abstract: We study the long-run persistence of relative economic well-being in the face of highly adverse government policies using a combination of rich historical and contemporaneous data sources from Kyrgyzstan. Even after controlling for unobservable local effects, the economic well-being…

In this research, we ask whether kinship networks help promote entrepreneurship or impede its development in the Kyrgyz Republic. We conducted a survey of firm managers/entrepreneurs about the nature of their business networks, what kinds of business and non-business resources…

The use of kinship networks by small business owners in the Kyrgyz Republic has both positive and negative effects on their companies’ profitability and revenue growth. In order to leverage these networks, technical advice to entrepreneurs should encourage discretion in…

This paper elucidates the willingness of an autocrat to push through institutional reforms in a context where traditional authorities represented by religious clerics are averse to them and where the military, who have their own preferences about reforms, control the…

Abstract: This paper investigates how social norms related to land conversion may evolve to accommodate greater scarcity, by taking advantage of data collected in the Equateur Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as historical events that introduced…

Abstract: The negative welfare consequences of child marriage are well established, but the phenomenon is still ubiquitous in developing countries, where one in three girls is married before the age of 18. Although most countries have a legal minimum age of marriage…

This EDI Policy Brief provides an accessible summary of key insights and findings that are presented in the EDI Working Paper on “Community Origins of Industrial Entrepreneurship in Pre-Independence India.” It derives from a case study on the role community networks in…

This EDI Working Paper derives from research undertaken in the Case Study on ‘Community networks and industrial entrepreneurship in India and China’ by Dilip Mookherjee et al. The authors argue that community networks played an important role in the emergence of…

Kate Vyborny presents her research on a project that explores how women in Pakistan can get access to the rights that they legally have. She looks particularly at the legal rights that are understood and established around marriage contracts. This…

This EDI Policy Brief provides an accessible summary of key insights and findings that are presented in the EDI Working Paper on “Community networks and the growth of private enterprise in China.” It derives from a case study on the…

This paper identifies and quantifies the role played by birth-county-based community networks in the growth of private enterprise in China. We develop a network-based model that generates predictions for the dynamics of firm entry, concentration, and firm size across birth counties with varying…

Female Employment and Aspirations for Children: Evidence from Bangladesh’s Garment Industry This EDI Policy Brief provides insight into gender roles and aspirations for children among a sample of families involved with the Bangladeshi garment industry. It is based upon an…

This policy brief reflects on the EDI Path-Finding Paper, “The dynamics of family systems: lessons from past and present time,” written by Catherine Guirkinger and Jean-Philippe Platteau. It exposes the main lessons from salient studies that have estimated the effects…

Catherine Guirkinger and Jean-Philippe Platteau discuss their findings based on their research on the dynamic aspects of family institutions. Their findings have also been published in the EDI Path-Finding Paper, ‘The Dynamics of Family Systems: lessons from past and present times‘.

Market exchange involves many cognitive and non-cognitive processes, e.g., search, inference, prediction, negotiation. Much attention has been devoted to these issues both in theory and in experimental economics. I focus on the enforcement of market transactions against opportunistic behavior. I…

This paper presents a survey of the literature on culture in economics, emphasizing the effects of culture as well as the origins of cultural development. Research finds culture to have a large set of effects on economic behaviors, outcomes and …

This paper reviews the economic literature on how family systems respond to changes in resource endowments, outside economic opportunities, the development of markets, and surrounding institutions. On topics where economic contributions are scarce, we also provide insights from other disciplines,…

Institutions are commonly defined as the rules of the game that societies play which in shared understanding act as constraints on and guidelines for economic performance. This paper provides an overview of case studies from the two largest developing countries,…

In this review, we examine the links between economic development and social conflict. By economic development, we refer broadly to aggregate changes in per-capita income and wealth, or in the distribution of that wealth. By social conflict, we refer to…

Gender relations are a key institution governing important aspects of production and reproduction of societies. They are guided by formal institutions as well as informal norms and values. As this survey shows, there is great regional heterogeneity in gender inequality…

This survey examines the relationship between community networks and migration. Adding networks to the Roy model, the workhorse model of migration in economics, is shown to reconcile key stylized facts on migration with the theory. This addition is supported by…

Kaivan Munshi (University of Cambridge) explores how labour movements and development are linked, and provides insight into the role of policy around this area. Watch the video below for his overview: