The clan and the corporation: Sustaining cooperation in China and Europe

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The Clan and the Corporation: Sustaining Cooperation in China and Europe Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may AbstractOver the last millennium, the clan and the corporation have been the loci of cooperation in China and Europe respectively. This paper examines -analytically and historically -the cultural and institutional co-evolution that led to this bifurcation. We highlight that groups with which individuals identify are basic units of cooperation. Such loyalty groups influence institutional development because intra-group moral commitment reduces enforcement cost implying a comparative advantage in pursuing collective actions. Loyalty groups perpetuate due to positive feedbacks between morality, institutions, and the implied pattern of cooperation.JEL-Code: N000, A100.

The Cultural Transmission of Trust Norms: Evidence from a Lab in the Field on a Natural Experiment

“…20 We cannot completely rule out the possibility that our experiment picks up trust (or mistrust) of people from the specific "outsider" village in question, rather than trust or mistrust of outsiders in general. Likewise, we cannot completely rule out the possibility that our results are reflective of different family structures across villages, which have been shown elsewhere to be tied to distrust of outsiders (Alesina and Giuliano 2014;Greif and Tabellini 2017;Enke 2017). Yet, the benefit of the natural experiment we exploit is that the salient difference across the villages was the political state in power.…”

“…Greif's work falls into a much broader literature which views institutions as the carriers of carriers of the historical-and hence cultural-past. Also see North (1990), David (1994), Engerman and Sokoloff (1997), La Porta et al (1998), Acemoglu et al (2001), Tabellini (2008a), Dell (2010), Voigtlaender and Voth (2012), Alesina et al (2013), Jha (2013), Gorodnichenko and Roland (2017), Greif and Tabellini (2017), and Dell and Olken (2017). For excellent overviews of recent developments in the culture and institutions literature, see Guiso et al (2006), Nunn (2012), and Alesina and Giuliano (2015).…”

The Paradox of Power: Understanding Fiscal Capacity in Imperial China and Absolutist Regimes

“…For instance, as noted previously, Rosenthal and Wong (2011) focus on the interaction between the quality of institutions and relative prices in China and Western Europe, emphasizing the contribution of informal arrangements to supporting long-distance commerce. Greif and Tabellini (2017) compare the kin-based Chinese culture, with its clan-based enforcement institutions, and the "generalized morality" cultures of Europe, which coevolved with corporate, group-independent institutional forms. Also see Ma (2011aMa ( , 2011bMa ( , 2014 and Brandt et al (2014).…”

The Influence of Clan Surname Diversity on County Economic Development Performance in China: An Empirical Study Based on Chinese Genealogy Data

“…The trust scope of this special trust is relatively small, which will have a negative impact on regional business development, innovation and entrepreneurship, and the development of modern civilization (Greif and Tabellini, 2017) [10]. Therefore, from the perspective of cultural diversity, this paper will further subdivide different clans with clan surnames, and measure the impact of clan surname diversity on county economic development performance.…”