Institutions affect preferences: The value of autonomy under liberal and authoritarian regimes
Do liberal societies cultivate and sustain the social norms and other preferences required to perpetuate their basic institutions in the long run? To explore the dynamic stability of liberalism as a culture-institutions coevolutionary process, we measure the value of personal autonomy and aversion to being controlled by others, among East Germans raised under Communist rule and East Germans raised in liberal Germany. Consistent with a positive response to our motivating question, in behavioral experiments we find that those raised in greater freedom adopted more pro-personal-autonomy preferences, a result unlikely to reflect age effects (based on evidence from West German cohorts).
Date: 2 December 2024, 11:30 (Monday, 8th week, Michaelmas 2024)
Venue: Manor Road Building, Manor Road OX1 3UQ
Venue Details: Skills Lab
Speakers: Professor Samuel Bowles (Sante Fe Institute), Katrin Schmelz (Santa Fe institute)
Organising department: Department of Economics
Part of: Political Economy Seminar
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Members of the University only
Editor: Edward Clark