Religious Extremism, Clubs, and Civil Liberties: A Model of Religious Populations

This paper extends the club model of religion to better account for observed patterns of extremism. We adapt existing models to a multi-agent framework and analyze the distribution of agents and clubs. We find that extremism is more successful when religious groups are able to produce close substitutes for standard goods and that increased access to publicly provided goods can reduce the extremist population share. Quantile regression modeling of data from a multi-nation survey and institutional indices corresponds to the model’s key results. Our findings offer a mechanism supporting research linking terrorist origination to civil liberties.Extremism, Religion, Sacrifice and Stigma, Multi-Agent Model, Civil Liberties

An Agent-Based Model of Mortality Shocks, Intergenerational Effects, and Urban Crime

Rational criminals choose crime over lawfulness because it pays better; hence poverty correlates to criminal behavior. This correlation is an insufficient historical explanation. An agent-based model of urban crime, mortality, and exogenous population shocks supplements the standard economic story, closing the gap with an empirical reality that often breaks from trend. Agent decision making within the model is built around a career maximization function, with life expectancy as the key independent variable. Rational choice takes the form of a local information heuristic, resulting in subjectively rational suboptimal decision making. The effects of population shocks are explored using the Crime and Mortality Simulation (CAMSIM), with effects demonstrated to persist across generations. Past social trauma are found to lead to higher crime rates which subsequently decline as the effect degrades, though \'aftershocks\' are often experienced.Agent-Based Model, Crime, Bounded Rationality, Life Expectancy, Rational Choice

Religion, Clubs, and Emergent Social Divides

Arguments for and against the existence of an American cultural divide are frequently placed in a religious context. This paper seeks to establish that, all politics aside, the American religious divide is real, that modern religious polarization is not a uniquely American phenomenon, and that religious divides can be understood as naturally emergent within the club theory of religion. Analysis of the 2005 Baylor Religion reveals a bimodal distribution of religious commitment in the US. International survey data reveals bimodal distributions in twenty-eight of thirty surveyed countries. The club theory of religion, when applied in a multi-agent model, generates bimodal distributions of religious commitment whose emergence correlates to substitutability of club goods for standard goods and the mean population wage rate. Ramifications of religious bimodality include potential instability of majority rule electoral outcomes. Median estimators, such as majority rule democracy, are non-robust with bimodal distributions. When religion is politically salient and polarized, small errors can disproportionately shift the election result from the preferences of the median voter.Culture Divide, Religious Divide, Club Theory, Multi-Agent Model, Sacrifice

More Tickets, Fewer Accidents: How Cash-Strapped Towns Make for Safer Roads

Traffic accidents are one of the leading causes of injury and death in the U.S. The role of traffic law enforcement in the reduction of accidents has been studied by relatively few papers and with mixed results that may be due to a simultaneity problem. Traffic law enforcement may reduce accidents, but police are also likely to be stricter in accident-prone areas. We use municipal budgetary shortfalls as an instrumental variable to identify the effect of traffic citations on traffic safety and show that budgetary shortfalls lead to more frequent issuance of tickets to drivers. Using a panel of municipalities in Massachusetts, we show that increases in the number of tickets written reduce motor vehicle accidents and accident related injuries, and that tickets issued to younger drivers have a larger effect in reducing accidents. The findings show that failure to control for endogeneity results in a significant underestimation of the positive impact of law enforcement on traffic safety.accidents, safety, law enforcement, simultaneity

An Agent-Based Model Of Centralized Institutions, Social Network Technology, and Revolution

This paper sheds light on the general mechanisms underlying large-scale social and institutional change. We employ an agent-based model to test the impact of authority centralization and social network technology on preference falsification and institutional change. We find that preference falsification is increasing with centralization and decreasing with social network range. This leads to greater cascades of preference revelation and thus more institutional change in highly centralized societies and this effect is exacerbated at greater social network ranges. An empirical analysis confirms the connections that we find between institutional centralization, social radius, preference falsification, and institutional change

Firearms and Lynching

We assess firearms as a means of Black residents’ self-defense in the Jim Crow South. We infer access to firearms by race and place by measuring the fraction of suicides committed with a firearm. Corroborating anecdotal accounts and historical claims, state bans on pistols and increases in White law enforcement personnel served as mechanisms to disarm the Black community, while having no comparable effect on White residents’ firearm access. The interaction of these mechanisms with changing national market prices for firearms provides a credible identification strategy for Black residents’ firearm access. Rates of Black residents’ lynching decreased with their greater access to firearms. I had already determined to sell my life as dearly as possible if attacked. I felt if I could take one lyncher with me, this would even up the score a little bit. (Wells 1970, p. 62

Religion, Clubs, and Emergent Social Divides

Arguments for and against the existence of an American cultural divide are frequently placed in a religious context. This paper seeks to establish that, all politics aside, the American religious divide is real, that modern religious polarization is not a uniquely American phenomenon, and that religious divides can be understood as naturally emergent within the club theory of religion. Analysis of the 2005 Baylor Religion reveals a bimodal distribution of religious commitment in the US. International survey data reveals bimodal distributions in twenty-eight of thirty surveyed countries. The club theory of religion, when applied in a multi-agent model, generates bimodal distributions of religious commitment whose emergence correlates to substitutability of club goods for standard goods and the mean population wage rate. Ramifications of religious bimodality include potential instability of majority rule electoral outcomes. Median estimators, such as majority rule democracy, are non-robust with bimodal distributions. When religion is politically salient and polarized, small errors can disproportionately shift the election result from the preferences of the median voter

Religious Extremism, Clubs, and Civil Liberties: A Model of Religious Populations

This paper extends the club model of religion to better account for observed patterns of extremism. We adapt existing models to a multi-agent framework and analyze the distribution of agents and clubs. We find that extremism is more successful when religious groups are able to produce close substitutes for standard goods and that increased access to publicly provided goods can reduce the extremist population share. Quantile regression modeling of data from a multi-nation survey and institutional indices corresponds to the model’s key results. Our findings offer a mechanism supporting research linking terrorist origination to civil liberties

Religion, Clubs, and Emergent Social Divides

Arguments for and against the existence of an American cultural divide are frequently placed in a religious context. This paper seeks to establish that, all politics aside, the American religious divide is real, that modern religious polarization is not a uniquely American phenomenon, and that religious divides can be understood as naturally emergent within the club theory of religion. Analysis of the 2005 Baylor Religion reveals a bimodal distribution of religious commitment in the US. International survey data reveals bimodal distributions in twenty-eight of thirty surveyed countries. The club theory of religion, when applied in a multi-agent model, generates bimodal distributions of religious commitment whose emergence correlates to substitutability of club goods for standard goods and the mean population wage rate. Ramifications of religious bimodality include potential instability of majority rule electoral outcomes. Median estimators, such as majority rule democracy, are non-robust with bimodal distributions. When religion is politically salient and polarized, small errors can disproportionately shift the election result from the preferences of the median voter