Essays in development economics

(cont.) social activities. These results are unlikely to be driven by omitted environmental variables: social violence increases fastest where participation in Koran study also increases the fastest, and this is not true for state or industrial violence. Religious intensity is more strongly linked with social violence in regions that are more economically distressed. Credit availability mitigates this effect. These results support the ex-post social insurance model of religious intensity. High marginal utilities during economic distress increase incentives to enact sanctions. With volatility, religions with harsher punishment or violence are more stable and successful. As volatility declines, benign groups and religions become relatively successful. Chapter 3 During the early 20th century, France initiated an unusual tax policy to promote marriage and fertility, regressive in that fertility incentives were so large and greatest among the rich. Eugenic interest in family allowances was substantial during this time due to fear of depopulation and changing ratios of uneducated to educated. Family incomes were divided by family size to determine a final tax bracket. A number of countries have begun promoting similar tax incentives. Economic theory is ambiguous as to what such incentives do. This paper uses variation in tax policy with differential impact for different population groups to disentangle economic incentives from propaganda that often accompany such country-wide initiatives. Evidence using synthetic cohorts constructed from aggregate tax return data suggests ...

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Economics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Chen, Daniel

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Esther Duflo and Joshua Angrist.

• Economics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/28818

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/28818