Qualitative accounts of anthropologists indicate that social structure plays an important role in how resources are shared in society. But quantitative evidence measuring the impacts of social organization on financial ties and transfers has been lacking.

In a paper in the American Economic Review, authors Jacob Moscona and Awa Ambra Seck helped to fill that gap. They found that in East Africa, cash transfer policies had very different effects in cultures organized by kinship ties compared to cultures organized around age groups.

The findings suggest that social organization has a deep impact on how resources spread through economies and ultimately shape inequality.

Jacob Moscona recently spoke with Tyler Smith about the difference between kin-based societies and age-based societies and how they affect development policies.

The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was launched at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in the hopes that it would keep businesses from laying off workers during government shutdown measures taken to contain the spread of the disease.

Initial estimates of the direct impacts have been mixed, with some studies suggesting that the cost was hundreds of thousands of dollars per job saved.

But a paper in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy looked beyond the labor market at a second order effect showing a clear and positive benefit. Authors Sumit Agarwal, Brent W. Ambrose, Luis A. Lopez, Xue Xiao found that the PPP reduced mortgage delinquencies for commercial real estate by roughly $36 billion in 2020 and likely played an important role in averting wider distress in financial markets.

Ambrose recently spoke with Tyler Smith about the impact of PPP loans on the commercial real estate market and ways in which the program could have been better targeted.

In 2005, Austria’s most prominent far-right party proclaimed a “Third Turkish Siege of Vienna.” The campaign warned voters that, like their ancestors who were almost overrun by the Ottoman Empire four centuries ago, they were being culturally invaded by Muslims. The campaigners hoped to use long-past historical events to shape the behavior and sentiments of modern-day voters. But did it work?

The strategy sparked a surge in the far-right’s vote share and a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment, according to a paper in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. The authors, Christian Ochsner and Felix Roesel, studied areas with ties to the historical trauma of the Sieges of Vienna and explained how political innovators reinvigorated latent xenophobic narratives that mobilized voters.

Ochsner recently spoke with Tyler Smith about the recent political environment in Austria, the use of historical parallels, and the impact on Muslim minorities.