Research Seminar: Religion, Social Trust and Human Capital (by Ioannis Bournakis, Dimitris Christopoulos & Elena Nikolova)
Ακαδημαϊκά Ερευνητικά Σεμινάρια στις Οικονομικές Επιστήμες, 2019-2020
Τμήμα Οικονομικών Επιστημών
Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Research Seminar Series in Economic Sciences, 2019-2020
Department of Economics
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Dear All,
We would like to inform you for the following research seminar:
Wednesday, February 26, 2020, 14:00-15:30
Ioannis Bournakis, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Middlesex University, London.
URL: https://sites.google.com/view/ioannis-bournakis/home
Title: Religion, Social Trust and Human Capital (by Ioannis Bournakis, Dimitris Christopoulos & Elena Nikolova)
Location: Griparion Megaron, 1 Sofokleous Str., 4th floor, 416.
Abstract
Historically, economic literature acknowledges the role of religion in driving economic outcomes. In understanding the role of religion in economics, scholars try to identify the channels through which beliefs and attitudes shaped from religion are important for growth and prosperity.
Accordingly, existing evidence suggests that different religion denominations impact upon the quality of institutions in a society, overall productivity, women participation in the labour market and income inequality. There is very little knowledge as to what extent religion drives the accumulation of production inputs, such as human capital.
Differences in human capital is now well perceived as one of the most crucial determinant of income differentials around the world. The present study endeavours to shed light into this puzzle identifying social trust as the key mediating mechanism through which religion affects human capital. Specifically, we use evidence from 130 countries over the period 1950-2014 to explore whether the shares of adherents of the following religions: Christians (Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox), Jewish and Muslim influence the level of trust in the society, which in turn motivates individuals to invest on human capital. Our results show that religion matters for the level of human capital both within Christianity and across other religion denominations.
Keywords: Human Capital, Social Trust, Religion
Organizers:
Assoc. Professor Dimitris Kenourgios
Assist. Professor George Dotsis
Assist. Professor Frago Kourandi
Department of Economics, NKUA.
Thank you