Open Access
Kin networks and quality of government: a regional analysis
(Springer, 2024-11-13) Ezcurra Orayen, Roberto; Economía; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa
This paper examines the relationship between kin-based institutions and quality of government in the regions of Spain, France, and Italy. The results show that the rate of cousin marriage during the twentieth century is a strong predictor of the modern-day quality of government in the regions of these three countries. Regions characterized by a higher prevalence of cousin marriage tend to have on average worse governance outcomes. This finding holds after accounting for country fixed effects and different variables that may be correlated with both consanguinity and regional quality of government, including an extensive array of geographical, historical, and contemporary factors. The observed association between cousin marriage and quality of government persists when I utilize an instrumental variable approach that exploits regional variation in the degree of historical exposure to the marriage laws of the medieval Catholic Church to address potential endogeneity concerns. Furthermore, the paper also provides evidence consistent with the idea that the effect of cousin marriage on the quality of government operates through its impact on a series of cultural traits such as impersonal trust, fairness, and conformity-obedience.
Open Access
Sunlight, culture and state capacity
(Wiley, 2023) Ezcurra Orayen, Roberto; Economía; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa
This paper examines the impact of ultraviolet radiation (UV-R) on state capacity. The results indicate that the intensity of UV-R is a strong predictor of cross-country differences in state capacity. Countries with a higher degree of UV-R exposure tend on average to have weaker states. This finding remains unaffected after controlling for different variables that may be correlated with both UV-R and state capacity, including an extensive set of geographical, historical and contemporary factors. The observed link between sunlight and state capacity is not driven by potential outliers and is robust to the employment of alternative measures of state capacity, estimation methods and other sensitivity checks. Furthermore, the analysis also reveals that the individualistic-collectivist dimension of culture acts as a transmission channel connecting UV-R and state capacity. The estimates show that a lower degree of UV-R exposure leads to the adoption of individualistic values, which in turn contribute to the development of state capacity.
Open Access
Individualism and political instability
(Elsevier, 2021-01-01) Ezcurra Orayen, Roberto; Economía; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE
This paper examines the relationship between the individualism-collectivism dimension of culture and political instability using a dataset covering around 100 countries. To shed light on the causal effect of culture on political instability, the identification strategy exploits the variation in historical pathogen prevalence and the information provided by the genetic distance between countries. The results reveal that individualism has a negative and statistically significant impact on the degree of political instability, which means that this cultural trait contributes to making the political environment more stable. This finding is robust to the inclusion in the analysis of a substantial number of controls that may be correlated with both individualism and political instability, including other cultural dimensions. In fact, the relationship between individualism and political instability does not depend either on the specific measures used to quantify the level of individualism and political instability within the various countries or the estimation strategy adopted. The estimates also show that part of the observed effect of individualism is due to the impact of institutional quality, which acts as a transmission channel linking this cultural trait and political instability.
Open Access
Do wealth levels affect the contribution to negative externalities?
(Elsevier, 2020) Benito Ostolaza, Juan Miguel; Ezcurra Orayen, Roberto; Osés Eraso, Nuria; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Economía
This paper experimentally explores the link between poverty and decisions that lead environmental degradation. In the experiment, individuals with different wealth levels play a game that describes environmental degradation as a contribution to an activity that generates a negative externality. The experimental data show that wealth levels not related to the environment (exogenous poverty) play no significant role in environmental decisions. However, the variation in wealth as a consequence of the contribution to environmental degradation (endogenous poverty) affects the behavior of individuals, that enter a spiral of poverty and environmental degradation. These results suggest the existence of a poverty-environment trap.
Open Access
Kin-based institutions and state capacity
(Elsevier, 2025-06-01) Ezcurra Orayen, Roberto; Economía; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa
This paper examines the relationship between kin-based institutions and state capacity. The results show that the intensity of kinship networks is a strong predictor of present-day state capacity, both across and within countries. Societies historically characterized by more intensive kinship systems tend to have weaker states today. This finding holds after accounting for various variables that may be correlated with both kinship network intensity and state capacity, including a broad range of geographic, historical, and contemporary factors. The results are also robust when employing an instrumental variable approach that exploits plausibly exogenous variation in historical exposure to the marriage laws of the medieval Catholic Church. Additionally, the analysis reveals that societies with intensive kin-based institutions typically exhibit lower political centralization. Given the essential role of political centralization in establishing state capacity, this finding helps explain the negative association between kinship intensity and state capacity.
Open Access
Political equality and quality of government
(Wiley, 2022) Ezcurra Orayen, Roberto; Zuazu, Izaskun; Economía; Ekonomia
This paper examines the relationship between political equality and quality of government. Our hypothesis is that political equality fosters access to inclusive education and ultimately promotes good governance. We empirically test this hypothesis using data for 145 countries with different levels of economic development. In order to overcome potential endogeneity problems, our identification strategy exploits the variation in political equality in geographically neighbouring countries by means of spatial econometric techniques. The results reveal a positive and statistically significant effect of political equality on the quality of government. This implies that countries where political power is more evenly distributed tend on average to have higher levels of institutional quality. In fact, this result is not affected by the inclusion in the analysis of a substantial number of controls that may be correlated with both political equality and quality of government, including the extent of democracy and the degree of economic inequality. In fact, the observed link between political equality and governance remains robust to alternative measures of quality of government, estimation techniques, and other sensitivity checks. Our estimates also show that education acts as a transmission channel linking political equality and quality of government.
Open Access
Globalization and spatial inequality: does economic integration affect regional disparities?
(Springer, 2021-02-19) Ezcurra Orayen, Roberto; Villar Olano, Alba del; Economía; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE
This article examines the link between economic globalization and spatial inequality in a panel of 142 countries over the period 1992¿2012. Our instrumental variables estimates reveal a strong causal effect of the degree of economic integration with the rest of the world on spatial inequality, indicating that the advances in the process of globalization currently underway contribute to significantly increasing regional income disparities. This means that globalization leads to the emergence of losing and winning regions within countries and that the group of losing (winning) regions tends to be made up of low (high-)-income regions. This result has to do with the regressive spatial impact of actual economic flows, while existing restrictions on trade and capital do not exert a significant effect in this context. Our findings are robust to the inclusion in the analysis of different covariates that may be correlated with both spatial inequality and globalization and are not driven by a specific group of influential countries. Likewise, the observed relationship between economic integration and spatial inequality does not depend on the measures used to quantify the magnitude of regional income disparities within the various countries. At the same time, our estimates suggest that the spatial impact of globalization is contingent on the level of economic development.