Pauline Grosjean

• UNSW Sydney

We examine the relationship between allomaternal care (i.e., care for children by individuals other than the mother) and prosociality (reciprocity and altruism). Motivated by ethnographic evidence of a positive association between allomaternal care and societal trust across cultures, we design an economic experiment to measure the relationship betw...

We examine a novel hypothesis that roots human prosociality in the need to elicit and sustain help from others for the purpose of raising children. Cross-cultural ethnographic data suggests a positive association between societal trust and allomaternal care, i.e., care coming from individuals other than the mother. In this study, we test the relati...

We measure how a network of heroes can legitimize and diffuse extreme political behaviors. We exploit newly declassified intelligence files, novel voting data, and regimental histories to show that home municipalities of French line regiments arbitrarily rotated under Philippe Pétain’s generalship through the heroic World War I battlefield of Verdu...

Unlabelled: We document the historical roots and contemporary consequences of masculinity norms-beliefs about the proper conduct of men. We exploit a natural experiment in which convict transportation in the 18th and 19th centuries created a variegated spatial pattern of sex ratios across Australia. We show that in areas with heavily male-biased c...

This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note...

Can political rallies affect the behavior of law enforcement officers towards racial minorities? Using data from 35 million traffic stops, we show that the probability that a stopped driver is Black increases by 5.74% after a Trump rally during his 2015–2016 campaign. The effect is immediate, specific to Black drivers, lasts for up to 60 days after...

We combine data collected just prior to the unfolding of COVID‐19 with follow‐up data from July 2020 to document the adverse economic effects of the pandemic and resulting impact on parental and child mental well‐being in peri‐urban Pakistan. 22% of the households in our sample are affected by job loss, with monthly income down 38% on average. Our...

Catholicism's policy forbidding cousins to wed may have led to the distinctive characteristics of Western society

We study the long-run effects of forced migration on investment in education. After World War II, millions of Poles were forcibly uprooted from the Kresy territories of eastern Poland and resettled (primarily) in the newly acquired Western Territories, from which the Germans were expelled. We combine historical censuses with newly collected survey...

We merge data on spatial variation in the presence of convicts across eighteenth and nineteenth century Australia with results from the country's 2017 poll on same-sex marriage and with household survey data. These combined data allow us to identify the lasting impact of convict colonization on social norms about marriage. We find that in areas wit...

Using an original, nationally representative survey of 600 Tunisians, we show that support for the Islamic party in the first post-Arab Spring election came from wealthier districts and individuals. We demonstrate that standard public finance arguments explain this voting pattern better than other available explanations. Our model predicts that a v...

We document the short- and long-run effects of male-biased sex ratios. We exploit a natural historical experiment where large numbers of male convicts and far fewer female convicts were sent to Australia in the 18th and 19th centuries. In areas with more male-biased sex ratios, women were historically more likely to get married and less likely to w...

Significance Female sexualization is increasing, and scholars are divided on whether this trend reflects a form of gendered oppression or an expression of female competitiveness. Here, we proxy local status competition with income inequality, showing that female sexualization and physical appearance enhancement are most prevalent in environments th...

We exploit a unique historical setting to study the long-run effects of forced migration on investment in education. After World War II, the Polish borders were redrawn, resulting in largescale migration. Poles were forced to move from the Kresy territories in the East (taken over by the USSR) and were resettled mostly to the newly acquired Western...

External financing of local public goods can potentially create ‘political resource curses' by reducing citizen oversight, exacerbating elite capture, and producing policy outcomes that are sub-optimal for the general population. This paper experimentally tests a novel mechanism that seeks to mitigate elite capture of local development projects. Co...

Convict transportation to Australia imposed heavily male-biased sex ratios in some areas, altering the convict-era mating market and generating long-running cultural effects that persist to the present day. We test whether convict-era sex ratios have altered marital and overall life satisfaction today, through their persistent effects on gender nor...

We document interpersonal violence as a dimension of the resource curse. We rely on a historical natural experiment in the United States, where mineral discoveries occurred sometimes before, sometimes after formal institutions were established in the county of discovery. In places where mineral discoveries occurred before formal institutions were e...

This paper studies the influence of marine ecology on social institutions of inheritance and descent. In a sample of 79 small-scale horticultural fishing communities in the Solomon Islands, and in samples of 186 to 1,265 societies across the world, we find that coral reef density systematically predicts the prevalence of matrilineal inheritance. Mo...

Reef density predicts the prevalence of matriliny in a sample of 186 societies across the world and in a sample of 59 small-scale horticultural fishing communities in the Solomon Islands. We show that this result holds even controlling for common descent by relying on variation within ethno-linguistic groups in our Melanesian micro-sample, where ma...

This paper uses new micro-level evidence from a nationally representative survey of 39,500 individuals in 35 countries to shed light on how individual experiences of conflict shape political and social preferences. The investigation covers World War II and recent civil conflict. Overwhelmingly, the results point to the negative and enduring legacy...

This study explores how initial endowments at the start of transition have shaped reform outcomes and reform trajectories in 27 former communist countries in Europe and Central Asia. Countries of the former Russian Empire that had a large resources sector at the start of transition underperformed other countries in terms of the speed and the depth...

This chapter examines the relationship between violence and pro-social behavior using unique game-behavioral and survey evidence collected in postwar Tajikistan. It shows that ex-combatants exhibit much less trust toward, and willingness to cooperate with, anonymous strangers compared to non-combatants. Thus, while violence reinforces social cohesi...

Economists offer a rational-choice perspective on conflict, using approaches that range from the game theoretic to the experimental. Modern economics has largely ignored the issue of outright conflict as an alternative way of allocating goods, assuming instead the existence of well-defined property rights enforced by an undefined third party. And y...

We uncover interpersonal violence as a dimension and a mechanism of the resource curse. We rely on a historical natural experiment in the United States, in which mineral discoveries occurred at various stages of governmental territorial expansion. "Early" mineral discoveries, before full-fledged rule of law is in place in a county, are associated w...

This study explores how initial endowments at the start of transition have shaped reform outcomes and reform trajectories in 27 former communist countries in Europe and Central Asia. Countries of the former Russian Empire that had a large resources sector at the start of transition underperformed other countries in terms of the speed and the depth...

We study the effect of individual exposure to civil conflict on trust and preferences for market participation. We conducted behavioral experiments and surveys among 426 randomly selected individuals more than a decade after the end of the Tajik civil war. We find that exposure to violence undermines trust within localities, decreases the willingne...

This paper illustrates the sensitivity of political attitudes to the business cycle. It shows how the 2008 economic crisis has reshaped individual support for democracy and market liberalization in post-transition countries. Pro-reform attitudes have lost ground between 2006 and 2010 in Central and Eastern European countries that were hit by a nega...

We design an experiment to examine the causal effect of legal institutional quality on informal norms of cooperation, and study the interaction of institutions and culture in sustaining economic exchange. 346 subjects in Italy and Kosovo play a market game under different and randomly allocated institutional treatments, which generate different inc...

This paper uses new micro-level evidence from a nationally representative survey of 39,500 individuals in 35 countries to shed light on how individual experiences of conflict shape political and social preferences. The investigation covers World War II and recent civil conflict. Overwhelmingly, the results point to the negative and enduring legacy...

We estimate the impact of the recent economic crisis on support for democracy and a free market economy in 30 post transition countries and five western European countries. Political values are cyclical and reflect a learning process. Support for the market and democracy has decreased between 2006 and 2010 in countries that were hit the hardest and...

Recent studies have reported surprising increases in pro-social behavior following exposure to conflict. However, our research provides cautionary evidence of some important detrimental effects of conflict hidden within an overall trend toward increasing certain pro-social preferences. We draw our inferences from experimental and survey evidence we...

Our research provides experimental and survey evidence on the pro-social behavior (trust, reciprocity, a sense of fairness) and preferences for anonymous market transactions of former combatants. Our results, from a random sample in post-war Tajikistan, show that trust, reciprocity, generosity (dictator giving) are lowest among those respondents re...

Recent studies have reported surprising increases in pro-social behavior following exposure to conflict. However, our research provides cautionary evidence of some important detrimental effects of conflict hidden within an overall trend toward increasing certain pro-social preferences. We draw our inferences from experimental and survey evidence we...

According to the culture of honor hypothesis, the high prevalence of homicides in the US South originates from the settlement of the region by herders from the fringes of Britain. This paper confirms that Scot or Scots-Irish settlements are associated with higher homicide today, but only in the South. The effect is confined to white offenders and m...

The cultural gravity model proposed in this paper uses micro-level survey data of 21,000 households to estimate the contribution to cultural heterogeneity of a long history of division between the Ottoman, Habsburg, Russian or Prussian Empires since the year 1300 in 21 European countries. By exploiting the variation in the duration of integration o...

This paper uses a historical experiment - the occupation of South Eastern Europe by the Ottoman Empire - to shed light on the persistence of financial development. Interest-lending prohibition persisted under Islamic rule much longer than in the rest of Europe. The unique history and political fragmentation of the region allows investigating within...

We estimate the impact of market development and democratization on subjective political preferences. We rely on the specific situation of frontier zones and the considerable regional variations in culture and economic development in the countries of the former socialist bloc for identification. Using a survey conducted in 2006, we find a positive...

There has been much attention recently to public-private partnerships and the involvement of NGOs in public good provision. This paper re-examines the effect of ownership of a public good on investment incentives when contracts are incomplete. In the presence of maintenance costs, it is shown that the leading result in the literature by Besley and...

This paper estimates the risk preferences of cotton farmers in Southern Peru, using the results from a multiple-price-list lottery game. Assuming that preferences conform to two of the leading models of decision under risk--Expected Utility Theory (EUT) and Cumulative Prospect Theory (CPT)--we find strong evidence of moderate risk aversion. Once we...

International child sponsorship is one of the leading forms of direct aid from households in wealthy countries to needy children in developing countries. We analyze the long-term impacts of child sponsorship by drawing a random sample from a list of formerly sponsored children in a program that was rolled out across villages in Uganda in the early...

Using a new set of micro evidence from an original survey of 28 transition countries, we show that democracy increases citizens’ support for the market by guaranteeing income redistribution to inequality-averse agents. Our identification strategy relies on the restriction of the sample to inhabitants of open borders between formerly integrated coun...

We investigate how contract specificities affect the performance of municipal infrastructure projects in transportation, district heating, water and waste water, and solid waste. Using data from projects financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), we look at the effect of involving private parties with different degrees...

This paper examines the impacts of the Chinese Household Responsibility System, which governs rural land tenure, on rural-urban migration. Migration in China has traditionally been limited by the hukou system of household registration, under which individuals who wish to change their place of residence must gain approval from government authorities...

Using a new set of micro evidence from an original survey of 28 transition countries, we show that democracy increases citizens' support for the market by guaranteeing income redistribution to inequality-averse agents. Our identification strategy relies on the restriction of the sample to inhabitants of open borders between formerly integrated coun...

The link between local institutional and market failures, rural poverty and environmental degradation suggests a win-win policy intervention: solve local ?constraints and achieve both poverty alleviation and environmental goals. However, designing such interventions is problematic since exposure to constraints is unobservable and responses can be h...

This paper is dedicated to the relationship between market development and democracy. Hinging on a new survey (Life In Transition Survey) conducted in 2006 by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank in 28 post-transition countries, our identification strategy consists of relying on the specific situation of frontier-...

This paper is dedicated to the relationship between market development and democracy. We distinguish between contexts and preferences and ask whether it is true that the demand for democracy only emerges after a certain degree of market development is reached, and whether, conversely, democratisation is likely to be an obstacle to the acceptance of...

This paper undertakes a direct comprehensive assessment of the long-run sustainability of one the world’s largest sustainable development programs, the Slopping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) in China under different plausible post-SLCP scenarios. The analysis is based on farmer contingent behavior post-program land and labor decisions as well as c...

This paper studies how the ownership of a project affects the investment incentives of different parties, when the project generates non-excludable bene-fits. The main application is a conservation project, where a conservation NGO and a governmental agency make non contractible investments, which generate an opportunity cost that has to be paid to...

This paper is dedicated to the relation between market development and democracy. We distinguish contexts and preferences and ask whether it is true that the demand for democracy only emerges after a certain degree of market development is reached, and whether, conversely, democratization is likely to be an obstacle to the acceptation of market lib...

By using micro-level data from a household survey in 28 European and central Asian transition countries and Turkey, this paper develops a gravitational approach that allows to empirically investigate the respective roles of local social interactions, proxied by geographic localization data, and of distant history, in particular the influence of for...

Using micro-level data from a survey of 21,000 households, this paper estimates a 'cultural gravity model' that empirically investigates the respective contributions of a common past history and of spatial proximity, a proxy for local social interactions, on cultural values and economic outcomes. The focus is on opinions and economic outcomes for w...