Social Capital and Regional Economic Growth

We study a cross-section of 54 European regions in the period 1950-1998.The central question is whether social capital, in the form of generalized trust and associational activity, is related to regional differences in economic growth. Based on extensive robustness tests, we present evidence that Fukuyama's (1995) argument on trust does not hold and that Putnam's (1993) thesis on group membership in Italian regions can be generalized.Our analysis suggests that it is not only the mere existence of network relationships that stimulates regional economic growth, but also the level of actual involvement in these relationships.networks;regional development;social capital;trust

Toward a Unified Europe? Explaining Cultural Differences by Economic Development, Cultural Heritage and Historical Shocks

Economic development is linked with systematic changes in basic values, but cultural change is path dependent.This is known as Inglehart's thesis.In this paper we build on his thesis and try to explain value differences across European regions.This is relevant as it fits in the ongoing discussion of a 'Europe of the regions'.We find confirmation of Inglehart's thesis.New however, is our finding that historical shocks like the collapse of the Soviet Union marking the 'end of history' can influence this path dependent process.Moreover, we illustrate that convergence of values into a 'single European value landscape' takes a very long period, if it would occur anyway.European integration;culture;development;history

Asymptotic Distributions of the Overshoot and Undershoots for the L\'evy Insurance Risk Process in the Cram\'er and Convolution Equivalent Cases

Recent models of the insurance risk process use a L\'evy process to generalise the traditional Cram\'er-Lundberg compound Poisson model. This paper is concerned with the behaviour of the distributions of the overshoot and undershoots of a high level, for a L\'{e}vy process which drifts to $-\infty$ and satisfies a Cram\'er or a convolution equivalent condition. We derive these asymptotics under minimal conditions in the Cram\'er case, and compare them with known results for the convolution equivalent case, drawing attention to the striking and unexpected fact that they become identical when certain parameters tend to equality. Thus, at least regarding these quantities, the "medium-heavy" tailed convolution equivalent model segues into the "light-tailed" Cram\'er model in a natural way. This suggests a usefully expanded flexibility for modelling the insurance risk process. We illustrate this relationship by comparing the asymptotic distributions obtained for the overshoot and undershoots, assuming the L\'evy process belongs to the "GTSC" class

Preferences induced by accessibility: Evidence from priming

In one experiment, we studied risky preferences using a semantic-priming paradigm where accessibility is manipulated independently of beliefs about the frequencies of risky events. We compared the risks taken for precautionary decisions primed by relevant information (enhancing accessibility to relevant events) with those taken for unprimed decisions and decisions primed by irrelevant information. We found that both priming and the subjective frequency of beliefs independently influence decision making. The results indicate that decisions are the result of an integration of influences derived from both the description (specified probability) and experience (accessibility to pre-experiment beliefs about event frequencies and temporarily activated relevant events) of risks. People's risk preferences are influenced by the accessibility of events in memory, such that increasing accessibility causes risk aversion to a potential loss to increase. Our research findings are not anticipated by the descriptive invariance axiom of expected utility theory, which states that equivalent formulations of a choice problem give rise to the same preference order

Moral Judgements Under Uncertainty

Research on ‘moral dilemmas’ has shown that respondents judge personal moral actions (“to push” in the footbridge dilemma) as less appropriate than equivalent impersonal moral actions (“to switch” in the trolley dilemma). Furthermore, theorists argued (e.g., Greene et al., 2001) that judgments of appropriateness in personal moral dilemmas are (i) more emotionally salient than impersonal moral dilemmas, and (ii) more cognitively demanding, as respondents spend relatively more time judging the appropriateness of personal moral actions. In contrast, in one experiment, we found that (i) the level of uncertainty regarding moral actions predicted judgments of appropriateness and (ii) participants spent relatively more time judging the appropriateness of actions in moral dilemmas with a high level of uncertainty. These results question existing theoretical accounts based on “cognitive emotional parameters” in processing of morally sensitive information, and offer a simple cognitive explanation, based on learning and elimination of uncertainty

Social Capital and Regional Economic Growth

We study a cross-section of 54 European regions in the period 1950-1998.The central question is whether social capital, in the form of generalized trust and associational activity, is related to regional differences in economic growth. Based on extensive robustness tests, we present evidence that Fukuyama's (1995) argument on trust does not hold and that Putnam's (1993) thesis on group membership in Italian regions can be generalized.Our analysis suggests that it is not only the mere existence of network relationships that stimulates regional economic growth, but also the level of actual involvement in these relationships.

Toward a Unified Europe? Explaining Cultural Differences by Economic Development, Cultural Heritage and Historical Shocks

Economic development is linked with systematic changes in basic values, but cultural change is path dependent.This is known as Inglehart's thesis.In this paper we build on his thesis and try to explain value differences across European regions.This is relevant as it fits in the ongoing discussion of a 'Europe of the regions'.We find confirmation of Inglehart's thesis.New however, is our finding that historical shocks like the collapse of the Soviet Union marking the 'end of history' can influence this path dependent process.Moreover, we illustrate that convergence of values into a 'single European value landscape' takes a very long period, if it would occur anyway.