The Institutional Origins of Vaccines Distrust: Evidence from Former-Communist Countries

How is trust in vaccines affected by exposure to Soviet communism? Using individual level evidence on vaccine trust with regards to its efficiency and safety from a long list of world countries, we document that exposure to Soviet communism reduces trust in vaccination. We show that exposure to socio-political regimes can explain limited trust in vaccines, which is explained by weak trust in government, medical personnel, medical advice from doctors as well as in people from the neighbourhood. These results suggest that roots of vaccine distrust lie in a wider distrust in public and state institutions resulting from the exposure to Soviet communism.

Do political connections make businesspeople richer? Evidence from Russia, 2003–2010

Extensive literature shows that businesspeople thrive on political connections. Most research, however, does not differentiate between types of political connection, thus effectively assuming that economic return on being connected should not differ systematically between federal and regional, legislative and executive, formal and informal connections. We collect a unique comprehensive dataset on Russia’s richest businesspeople in 2003–2010 and demonstrate that only certain types of connections work, depending on the political context. Our analysis shows that as Russian politics became centralized and the federal executive more powerful during the 2000s, businesspeople with informal connections to the federal executive increased their fortunes much faster compared with everyone else—including those with any other type of connections. Businesspeople’s wealth thus dynamically reflected these important political changes. This suggests a procedure for inferring nominally unobservable changes in the political system from politically connected businesspeople’s fortunes, while also shedding additional light on the institutional origins of informality in Russian politics today.

The Origins of Trust Asymmetry in International Relationships: An Institutional View

Trust is key to relationship marketing. Although trust is bilateral, studies on the dispersion of trust among exchange parties remain limited, leaving the antecedents and outcomes of trust asymmetry largely underexplored. To fill the gaps, this study empirically examines the effects of different types of trust asymmetry on exchange performance and then investigates the institutional origins of trust asymmetry in international interfirm exchanges. Drawing on a survey of 134 international buyer–supplier relationships in China, the study finds that both calculative trust asymmetry and relational trust asymmetry have negative influences on exchange performance. The study also finds that formal institutional distance constrains calculative trust asymmetry and informal institutional distance increases relational trust asymmetry. Moreover, prior interactions and expectations of continuity significantly moderate the effects of formal and informal institutional distance. This study advances trust studies in cross-border settings.

Ritual Law

The juncture of time, place, and performance was the gestation arena of the development of Israelite ritual and theology. The discussion in this chapter will therefore begin with an elucidation of distinct times and then proceed to examine the sacrificial system. The holy days include the Sabbath, pentateuchal festivals, New Moon, Purim, and miscellaneous festivals mentioned in passing. Each is explored with reference to its name, origins, and rituals. Passover is highlighted as the origin of national festivals and institutional sacrifice. Its mythic narrative as the formation point for the nation of Israel thus preserves an obscure historical truth. The sacrificial system is then presented through its pre-institutional origins, its development in the Covenant Code and Deuteronomy, and its standardization in the priestly writings. Major issues discussed include the centralization of the cult and the issue of profane slaughter, the principal types of sacrifice, and the manifold function of the cultic system in Israelite worship. Both the holy days and the sacrifices are analyzed, with broad reference to scholarly debate, for their theological, social, and legal aspects, concluding with their joint significance for Israelite religion. They bestowed relevance for every major event in the individual Israelite’s life, on joyous and distressful occasions alike, in a unified experience of mediation between the individual and the deity, as well as solidification of relationships between individual and community.