hero working papers

Social Structure, State, and Economic Activity

Number: 713
Year: 2025
Author(s): Yann Bramoulle, Sanjeev Goya, Massimo Morelli

Most societies in the world contain strong group identities and the culture supporting these groups is highly persistent. This persistence in turn gives rise to a
practical problem: how do and should societies with strong group identities organize themselves for exchange and public good provision? In this paper, we develop a theoretical framework that allows us to study, normatively and positively, the relationship between social structure, state capacity, and economic activity.