In a cross-section of countries, government regulation is strongly negatively correlated with social capital. We document this correlation, and present a model explaining it. In the model, distrust creates public demand for regulation, while regulation in turn discourages social capital...

OECD countries displaying stringent employment protection legislation turn out to experience much less pronounced aggregate fluctuations. This paper uses this stylized fact to gauge the impact of employment protection on fluctuations costs. This analysis is run under a dynamic general...

This paper shows that employment protection is influenced by the male breadwinner conception which is itself shaped by religions. First, by using international individual surveys, we document that Catholics, Muslims and Orthodoxs are more likely to support such "macho values" than Protestants...