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The Feminisation U describes the tendency of female labour force participation (FLFP) to first decline and then rise in the process of economic development. While the Feminisation U is often presented as a ‘stylised fact’ of development, empirical support for it is mixed. Here, we show that cultural norms inherited from ancestral plough use exert a moderating influence on the shape of the Feminisation U. Specifically, we find a significantly U-shaped path of FLFP only in countries whose ancestors employed a plough-based agricultural technology. The shape of the U-curve becomes progressively more muted as the share of a country's ancestors that practiced plough agriculture decreases. In countries with little or no legacy of historical plough use, the time path of FLFP is effectively flat. This pattern of results is robust to correcting for dynamic panel bias, instrumenting for per-capita income, and controlling for other potential effect modifiers. Our findings are compatible with a nuanced reading of the main theoretical models proposed in the literature to explain the Feminisation U.

Individualistic values are often presented as promoting economic development; however, their links to relevant behaviour and preferences at the micro-level remain under-explored. Here we investigate the relationship between individualistic values and personal attitudes towards reporting corruption. Unlike much of the previous research which focuses on attitudes towards corruption, we analyse the micro-level mechanisms relating to one's willingness to escape the status quo and act against corruption. We also focus on a region associated with persistently high levels of perceived corruption. Our findings indicate that individualism is associated with a greater likelihood to act against corruption. The effect estimated is small but highly significant and robust to changes in estimators and specifications. We also find evidence that institutional trust and individualism strengthen each other to generate greater willingness to report corruption.

To explain a so-called “happiness gap” between citizens of Eastern Europe and comparable individuals from other regions, researchers have pointed at low governance quality, and corruption in particular, as a possible cause. However, this explanation seems incompatible with the “broken windows” paradigm, which posit that in high-corruption environment, victims of corruption tend to report a lower psychological cost of victimisation. Our paper contributes to the literature by explicitly tackling this potential contradiction. Our results nuance our understanding of the role of corruption on people’s life satisfaction in Eastern Europe by investigating the extent to which the subjective cost of corruption depends on its pervasiveness. We demonstrate: (1) large individual cost associated with different measures of corruption, (2) a small reduction in these costs for some measures of corruption as it becomes more pervasive and (3) large inequalities in the cost of corruption depending on education and income. Overall, we conclude that, for the population as a whole, there is limited evidence of corruption being a social norm in Eastern Europe, in the sense that pervasiveness does not reduce individual cost.

Citizens' tax compliance should not only respond to the quality of formal institutions, but might also be culturally driven. We contribute to this literature by investigating whether tax morale, an individual's intrinsic non-pecuniary motivation to comply with taxes, is associated with the cultural values (following Hofstede's typology) held by this individual. The analysis exploits four waves of the European Values Survey (1981–2010) across 48 countries. The cultural dimensions are constructed through a polychoric principal component analysis on a set of relevant survey items consistent with Hofstede's definitions. Ordered logit estimations suggest that although values of individualism and femininity are associated with higher individual's tax morale, power distance and uncertainty avoidance are associated with lower tax morale. These results remain consistent as we increase the level of granularity of our investigation through within-region analyses and, subsequently, within-cohort analyses. We argue that these results inevitably enrich the emerging debate about cultural values and citizens' compliance with formal institutions. They also indicate that societal culture as well as individual values should be considered when designing policies aiming to improve tax compliance.

This chapter introduces the Handbook of Comparative Economics by motivating the choice of chapters collected in this edited volume and by articulating the links that exist between seemingly diverse contributions. We make explicit the historical origin of the field, namely Comparative Economic Systems, and the extent to which it matters to what comparative economics is today, before discussing the turning point that was the fall of the Berlin Wall. The subsequent move from central planning to market economies in Eastern Europe, and the importance of institutions, and institutional analysis for the field are explored, and how these led to the new approaches that came next. The chapter starts with a reflection on comparative economics, but leaves the conclusions open—to be revisited in Chap. 36.

This chapter concludes the Handbook of Comparative Economics by revisiting the chapters collected in this edited book and by articulating the links that exist between them. We discuss what we have learned from each of these contributions, and how, together, they contribute to defining what comparative economics is today. We, in particular, emphasize the opening up of the field to a variety of cognate disciplines and a relative effort to incorporate their key contributions, and we discuss some of the ways in which new issues are tackled and new methods are used to tackle them. We conclude on the continued importance of comparative analysis and its relevance to understanding the important issues of the day.

Purpose Cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cancer mortality rates in Eastern Europe are among the highest in the world. Although diet is an important risk factor, traditional eating habits in this region have not yet been explored. This analysis assessed the relationship between traditional dietary pattern and mortality from all-causes, CVD and cancer in Eastern European cohorts. Methods Data from the Health, Alcohol and Psychosocial factors in Eastern Europe prospective cohort were used, including participants from Russia, Poland and the Czech Republic. Based on food frequency questionnaire data, we constructed an Eastern European diet score (EEDS) from nine food groups which can be considered as traditional in this region. The relationship between categorical (low, moderate, high) and continuous (range 0–18) EEDS and mortality was estimated with Cox-regression. Results From 18,852 eligible participants, 2234 died during follow-up. In multivariable adjusted models, participants with high adherence to the traditional Eastern European diet had significantly higher risk of all-cause (HR 1.23; 95% CI 1.08–1.42) and CVD (1.34; 1.08–1.66) deaths compared to those with low adherence. The association with cancer mortality was only significant in Poland (high vs. low EEDS: 1.41; 1.00–1.98). From the specific EEDS components, high consumption of lard was significantly positively related to all three mortality outcomes, while preserved fruit and vegetable consumption showed consistent inverse associations. Conclusion Our results suggest that traditional eating habits may contribute to the poor health status, particularly the high CVD mortality rates, of populations in Eastern Europe. Adequate public health nutritional interventions in this region are essential.

The intertwined process of economic and political liberalisation in Central and Eastern Europe, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, has represented a unique opportunity to test, and improve on, our understanding of the origins of prosperity and the drivers of institutional change. In this chapter, we discuss what has been learned, and the open questions that remain, after thirty years of research on institutional change in transition. We summarise the lessons in three chronological steps: the natural experiment stage, the sequencing of reforms stage and finally the cultural legacies stage. We conclude on the need to explore further the formation of individual values and beliefs, explicitly recognising the importance of their social context.

This chapter presents an overview of what became known as “transition” and sets the scene for the rest of the book by highlighting the diversity of experiences across the region and discussing key indicators. We discuss the stylised facts of transition, and the long term effect on the population based on the happiness literature.

This book is indispensable reading for all interested in transition economics, economic growth, and European economics.

This chapter focuses on a topic that became a political minefield across the whole region – the privatisation process, discussing the complexity of the task, the difficult trade-offs faced by reformers and the consequences of related policy choices.

This chapter focuses on Central Planning, to explain the reasons for the slowdown and ultimate implosion of the command economy system.

Tacking stock of the arguments built in previous chapters, we reframe the discussion so far to emphasise the role of institutions in the process of development.

After our discussion of the impact of privatisation and restructuring, as well as of new firms’ entry and entrepreneurship in Chapter 8, we return to these issues to discuss unemployment. In particular, the reasons why labour market outcomes have been so different in various transition economies are explored.

This chapter asks a fundamental question: why did some countries go through a ten-year long recession, while others emerged from the post-communist recessions after a mere two years? What was the relative impact of stabilisation policies, liberalisation policies and initial conditions? This question is still important today, as it was the negative experience of the 1990s that turned some societies away from the reform path.

This chapter concludes on the particularity/normality of the region today, yet not necessarily answering all the questions.

This article examines the effects of war on livelihood choices and welfare outcomes of rural households in Kosovo using the 2000 Kosovo Living Standards Measurement Survey. We analyse the extent of the legacy of war on livelihood activities and welfare. We first identify livelihood portfolio clusters of households pursuing similar combinations of activities. These clusters are comparable to those described in more qualitative studies in the immediate post-conflict period. We then examine the determinants of livelihood portfolio choice and the consequences of these for welfare outcomes. Our results provide evidence of a relationship between a household’s experience of war and livelihood choice. We also identify significant selection effects on welfare for three out of four livelihood clusters, highlighting the fact that selecting into a specific livelihood portfolio changes welfare relative to expected levels. Our results show that war not only affects livelihood choices but also changes the returns to these activities.

Summary This paper examines the effects of war on livelihood portfolios and welfare outcomes of rural households in Kosovo using the 2000 Kosovo Living Standards Measurement Survey. We question to what extent the legacy of war was experienced through selection into low return livelihood activities or through decreases in welfare generally. We first identify portfolios using a clustering algorithm which groups households pursuing similar combinations of activities. The emerging clusters are comparable to those described in more qualitative studies for Kosovo in the immediate post-conflict period. We then examine the determinants of livelihood portfolio choice and the consequences of these for welfare outcomes, controlling for war legacies and selection into specific portfolios. We find evidence of a relationship between a household's war experience and their livelihood choices and that war exposure has different impacts on household welfare depending on the livelihood portfolio adopted. We also identify significant selection effects on welfare for three out of four of our livelihood clusters, highlighting the fact that selecting into a specific portfolio raised or lowered welfare above expected levels.

BACKGROUND. Farmers are faced with a wide range of pest management (PM) options which can be adopted in isolation or alongside complement or substitute strategies. This paper presents the results of a survey of UK cereal producers focusing on the character and diversity of PM strategies currently used by, or available to, farmers. In addition, the survey asked various questions pertaining to agricultural policy participation, attitude toward environmental issues, sources of PM advice and information and the important characteristics of PM technologies. RESULTS. The results indicate that many farmers do make use of a suite of PM techniques and that their choice of integrated PM (IPM) portfolio appears to be jointly dictated by farm characteristics and Government policy. Results also indicate that portfolio choice does affect the number of subsequent insecticide applications per crop. CONCLUSIONS. These results help to identify the type of IPM portfolios considered adoptable by farmers and highlight the importance of substitution in IPM portfolios. As such, these results will help to direct R&D effort toward the realisation of more sustainable PM approaches and aid the identification of potential portfolio adopters. These findings highlight the opportunity a revised agri-environmental policy design could generate in terms of by enhancing coherent IPM portfolio adoption.

This paper investigates the potential impact of post EU-accession public support, namely the introduction of the decoupled Single Area Payment (SAP), in Lithuania on its farming sector’s restructuring and future efficiency. Analyses are based on efficiency calculations with 2001-2002 FADN data for fieldcrop farms, and on the same sample’s farmers’ intentions to remain in the sector and to expand their area post EU-accession under two scenarios: a hypothetical scenario of continuing pre-accession national policies, and a realistic scenario of fully decoupled SAP introduction with coupled national top-ups. Our results suggest that, before accession to the EU, the smallest inefficient farms remained in the sector thanks to the policy support. However, the SAP introduction could potentially give the right incentives to Lithuanian farmers for a quicker restructuring and an increase in farm efficiency, although such change may be impeded by the lack of available agricultural land.

Cet article a fait l'objet d'un WP SMART-LERECO n°08-06, voir lien; The impact of the introduction of EU Single Area Payments (SAPs) on farm expansion strategy in Lithuania is investigated, utilising farm accounting and survey data. The introduction of the SAP has a positive influence on farmers' intentions to expand their area compared to a baseline scenario of the hypothetical continuation of pre-accession policy. The switch in policy has a more pronounced effect on farms that were previously credit constrained. While the SAP has been presented as a support that is decoupled from production, its introduction may have ex post coupled effects, through an income multiplier effect on credit constrained farmers.

Farmers are faced with a wide range of pest management (PM) options that can be adopted in isolation or alongside complementary or substitute strategies. This paper presents the results of a survey of UK cereal producers, focusing on the character and diversity of PM strategies currently used by, or available to, farmers. In addition, the survey asked various questions pertaining to agricultural policy participation, attitude towards environmental issues, sources of PM advice and information and the important characteristics of PM technologies.The results indicate that many farmers do make use of a suite of PM techniques, and that their choice of integrated PM (IPM) portfolio appears to be jointly dictated by farm characteristics and government policy. Results also indicate that portfolio choice does affect the number of subsequent insecticide applications per crop.These results help to identify the type of IPM portfolios considered to be adoptable by farmers and highlight the importance of substitution in IPM portfolios. As such, these results will help to direct RD effort towards the realisation of more sustainable PM approaches and aid the identification of potential portfolio adopters. These findings highlight the opportunity that a revised agri-environmental policy design could generate in terms of enhancing coherent IPM portfolio adoption.

Farmers’ attitudes, to agricultural production, diversification and policy support, and behavioural intentions in five Member States of the EU (France, Lithuania, Slovakia, Sweden, England) are analysed comparatively. Groups of farmers with similarly held attitudes are identified using cluster analysis to investigate whether differences in attitudes are defined predominately according to national, east–west, size or other criteria. The results highlight that the vast majority of farmers in the enlarged EU retain a productivist mindset, wish to maintain an agricultural focus and strongly reject notions of policy liberalisation. However, while the overwhelming majority advocate protection they are more receptive to greater flexibility in terms of the instruments through which policy support may be delivered. Overall, the strongest opposition to policy liberalisation comes from farmers in the New Member States of the EU.

Chapitre 20.; International audience; This study revisits the potential effect of democracy on economic development in a broad sample of countries, and also separately in a subsample of post-communist countries. The results are reassuring: democracy has a robustly positive impact on economic growth, and also on key factors of economic growth—investment in physical and human capital. Moreover, the sustained level of democracy, embodied in accumulated democratic capital, especially robustly correlates with economic development. When comparing the relative roles of democracy and economic freedom, democracy takes primacy in the global sample while both democracy and economic freedom seems to play important roles in the subsample of post-communist countries.