The Journal of socio-economics最新文献

In this paper we show how the investment in cultural events may encourage the building of social capital and foster the development of local communities. We rely on a case study we conducted on the socio-economic impact of “La Notte della Taranta” Festival, one of the most important European festivals dedicated to traditional music (about 170,000 participants per year), on the sub-region of southern Italy where it is held. Our evidence is based on a large survey, consisting of nearly 10,000 interviews to Festival attendees over a span of five editions (2007–2011). A primary result is that the initial economic investment in the Festival has brought a short-term return in terms of touristic attraction worth more than two times as much. More importantly, our results indicate that a cultural festival, despite being a mass gathering, is able to create strong bonds among its participants and between them and the area where the event takes place. Although these bonds are “instantaneous”, i.e. temporally restricted to the duration of the event, they are positively correlated with the economic impact of the event on the territory.

Engel's law is known to be extraordinarily consistent across time and space. To substantiate the distinction between necessities and luxuries, already Ernst Engel (1895) approached a behaviorally founded comprehensive assessment of structural changes in consumer expenditures. To build upon Engel's legacy and to complement the scarce empirical literature, a behavioral approach is applied. It is conjectured that differences in satiation patterns of universally-shared needs translate, on the aggregate level, into different shapes of Engel curves and thus also into different income elasticities of demand. Utilizing nonparametric regression techniques, it is explored whether and which expenditure categories change systematically with rising income. In line with the theoretical expectations, a number of empirical regularities in consumer expenditure patterns can be identified that go well beyond Engel's law.

The paper determines the role of the gentry in stifling the manufacturing development of formerly industrial southern England. An increasing divergence in economic composition between south and north is discussed, with particular reference to de-industrialisation in the former. The expanding estate system and emergence of a specific culture among landowners is described. Finally the case is made that this gentry culture was instrumental in reducing or redirecting southern enterprise during the industrial revolution.

Following Fukuyama's (2001) postulation for future research in economic development, this paper examines the cultural hypothesis regarding national economic prosperity. Culture is found to affect economic performance through two channels; cultural traits that stimulate individual motivation, and traits that develop social capital in the population. Culture is defined as a society's beliefs and value system and operationalized through the use of variables from the World Values Survey (WVS). The analysis controls for factors commonly recognized in the economic growth literature. The results are sustained through a sensitivity analysis using a variant of extreme bounds analysis (EBA). Compared with previous empirical studies, this research deepens the cultural analysis, increases the number of observations, and lengthens the time period studied.

The issue of low-wage competition in services trade involving posted workers is controversial in the EU. Using Swedish survey data, people's attitudes are found to be more negative to such trade than to goods trade. The differences depend on both a preference for favouring social groups to which individuals belong (the domestic population) and altruistic justice concerns for foreign workers. In small-group experiments, we find a tendency for people to adjust their evaluations of various aspects of trade to their general attitude. This tendency is stronger for those opposed to than those in favour of low-wage trade competition. This may indicate that the former group forms its attitudes in a less rational way than the latter group.

Economic and financial researchers rarely use culture as an exploratory variable for economic and financial events. This paper explores the role of cultural attributes in a nation's welfare. First, we use a theoretical model to show that the higher a nation's long term orientation, the more it chooses to save. We also show that nations with higher long term orientation enjoy a higher level of welfare. We complement the theoretical model with empirical analysis using a panel of data for 86 countries, from 1999 to 2009. The results from the empirical study support our proposition that nations with a higher long term orientation have higher saving rates.