IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/econjl/v131y2021i637p1947-1987..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Climate Risk, Cooperation and the Co-Evolution of Culture and Institutions

Author

Listed:
  • Johannes C Buggle
  • Ruben Durante

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between economic risk and the evolution of social cooperation. We hypothesise that trust developed in pre-industrial times as a result of experiences of cooperation aimed at coping with climatic risk. We document that European regions with higher pre-industrial climatic variability display higher levels of trust today. This effect is driven by variability in the growing season months and is more pronounced in agricultural regions. Regarding possible mechanisms, our results indicate that climatic risk favoured intercommunity exchange and the early adoption of inclusive political institutions which is associated with higher quality of local governments today.

Suggested Citation

  • Johannes C Buggle & Ruben Durante, 2021. "Climate Risk, Cooperation and the Co-Evolution of Culture and Institutions," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(637), pages 1947-1987.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:econjl:v:131:y:2021:i:637:p:1947-1987.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ej/ueaa127
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1997. "Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1251-1288.
    2. Buggle, Johannes C., 2016. "Law and social capital: Evidence from the Code Napoleon in Germany," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 148-175.
    3. Avinash Dixit, 2003. "Trade Expansion and Contract Enforcement," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(6), pages 1293-1317, December.
    4. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2004. "The Role of Social Capital in Financial Development," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 526-556, June.
    5. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2009. "Cultural Biases in Economic Exchange?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(3), pages 1095-1131.
    6. Fafchamps, Marcel, 1992. "Solidarity Networks in Preindustrial Societies: Rational Peasants with a Moral Economy," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(1), pages 147-174, October.
    7. Maarten Bosker & Eltjo Buringh & Jan Luiten van Zanden, 2013. "From Baghdad to London: Unraveling Urban Development in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, 800–1800," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(4), pages 1418-1437, October.
    8. Grimard, Franque, 1997. "Household consumption smoothing through ethnic ties: evidence from Cote d'Ivoire," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 391-422, August.
    9. Melissa Dell & Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2012. "Temperature Shocks and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Last Half Century," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 66-95, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andrea Tesei, 2015. "Trust and Racial Income Inequality: Evidence from the U.S," Working Papers 737, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    2. Durante, Ruben, 2009. "Risk, Cooperation and the Economic Origins of Social Trust: an Empirical Investigation," MPRA Paper 25887, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Bai, Liang & Wu, Lingwei, 2020. "Political movement and trust formation: Evidence from the Cultural Revolution (1966–76)," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    4. Andrea Tesei, 2015. "Trust and Racial Income Inequality: Evidence from the U.S," CEP Discussion Papers dp1331, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    5. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/eu4vqp9ompqllr09iatsh0to2 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Qin, Wei & Liang, Quanxi & Jiao, Yan & Lu, Meiting & Shan, Yaowen, 2022. "Social trust and dividend payouts: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    7. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2016. "Long-Term Persistence," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(6), pages 1401-1436, December.
    8. Vincenzo Bove & Leandro Elia & Massimiliano Ferraresi, 2023. "Immigration, Fear of Crime, and Public Spending on Security," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 39(1), pages 235-280.
    9. Wu, Wenfeng & Firth, Michael & Rui, Oliver M., 2014. "Trust and the provision of trade credit," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 146-159.
    10. Konstantinos Matakos & Dimitrios Minos & Ari Perdana & Elizabeth Radin, 2022. "“Dragon boating” alone? Community ties and systemic income shocks," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(1), pages 55-81, January.
    11. Amore, Mario Daniele & Epure, Mircea, 2021. "Riding out of a financial crisis: The joint effect of trust and corporate ownership," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 92-109.
    12. Bohdan Kukharskyy & Michael Pflüger, 2011. "Relational Contracts and the Economic Well-Being of Nations," Working Papers 095, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    13. Bamieh, Omar & Cintolesi, Andrea, 2021. "Intergenerational transmission in regulated professions and the role of familism," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 857-879.
    14. Nicholas Bloom & Raffaella Sadun, 2012. "The Organization of Firms Across Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(4), pages 1663-1705.
    15. L. Bottazzi & M. Da Rin & T. Hellmann, 2007. "The Importance of Trust for Investment: Evidence from Venture Capital," Working Papers 612, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    16. Mehmet Fatih Ekinci & Şebnem Kalemli-Özcan & Bent E. Sørensen, 2009. "Financial Integration within EU Countries: The Role of Institutions, Confidence and Trust," NBER Chapters, in: NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2007, pages 325-391, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Ernst Fehr, 2009. "On The Economics and Biology of Trust," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 235-266, 04-05.
    18. Forte, Anabel & Peiró-Palomino, Jesús & Tortosa-Ausina, Emili, 2015. "Does social capital matter for European regional growth?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 47-64.
    19. Pevzner, Mikhail & Xie, Fei & Xin, Xiangang, 2015. "When firms talk, do investors listen? The role of trust in stock market reactions to corporate earnings announcements," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 190-223.
    20. Wen, Chufu & Zhao, Xinyu & Xu, Longhao & Yin, Hua, 2023. "Military experience and household stock market participation: Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    21. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2010. "Civic Capital as the Missing Link," NBER Working Papers 15845, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • Z10 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - General
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • N53 - Economic History - - Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment and Extractive Industries - - - Europe: Pre-1913

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:econjl:v:131:y:2021:i:637:p:1947-1987.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/resssea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.