Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-16-2019
Abstract
We examine the roots of variation in corruption across societies, and we argue that marriage practices and family structure are an important, overlooked determinant of corruption. By shaping patterns of relatedness and interaction, marriage practices influence the relative returns to norms of nepotism/favoritism versus norms of impartial cooperation. In-marriage (e.g. consanguineous marriage) generates fractionalization because it yields relatively closed groups of related individuals and thereby encourages favoritism and corruption. Out-marriage creates a relatively open society with increased interaction between non-relatives and strangers, thereby encouraging impartiality. We report a robust association between in-marriage practices and corruption both across countries and within countries. Instrumental variables estimates exploiting historical variation in preferred marriage practices and in exposure to the Catholic Church’s family policies provide evidence that the relationship could be causal.
Recommended Citation
Akbari, M., Bahrami-Rad, D., & Kimbrough, E. O. (2019). Kinship, fractionalization and corruption. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 166, 493-528. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2019.07.015
Peer Reviewed
1
Copyright
Elsevier
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Included in
Economic Theory Commons, Family, Life Course, and Society Commons, Inequality and Stratification Commons, Other Economics Commons, Other Sociology Commons, Political Economy Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons, Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies Commons, Social Control, Law, Crime, and Deviance Commons, Sociology of Culture Commons, Work, Economy and Organizations Commons
Comments
NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, volume 166, in 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2019.07.015
The Creative Commons license below applies only to this version of the article.