Max Posch

🚨Davide Cipullo, Tommaso Colussi, Domenico Rossignoli and I are excited to open the call for the 2nd UniCatt Political Economy workshop! We have 2 great keynotes: Alessandra Casella and David Yanagizawa-Drott. Send us your papers (theory or empirics) and let us meet in Milano on December 18.

Excellent piece of historical economic cultural evolution research! I will have to read it in more detail today.

✨Did markets make Americans more cooperative❓🔍

✅YES‼️

Between 1850 and 1920, the US became the largest and most integrated economy in the world 📶🌎

We show that this shift didn’t just move goods and affect prices—it fundamentally changed culture and behavior

🧵 👇 1/17

📄 Doux Commerce: Markets, Culture, and Cooperation in 1850–1920 U.S.
👥 Max Posch & Itzchak Tzachi Raz
Read the full paper here:
🔗https://dropbox.com/scl/fi/xydg1vid6a8pw8zmvw8yc/Posch_Raz_Markets.pdf?rlkey=4b4qwrdkdv47ri5721mfwy92v&dl=0

17/17

Bottom line:

We provide new support for the doux commerce hypothesis:
markets➡️impersonal prosocial norms, generalized trust, and broader patterns of cooperation

⚠️BUT markets also weakened traditional kin-based social insurance. Marx and Polanyi aren't entirely wrong!

16/17

2️⃣ Multiple indirect channels❌

Population diversity🫂, economic development🏭, access to information📰, and legal institutions🏛️—may have played some role, but none appear to account for the link between market access and generalized cooperative culture and behavior

15/17

WHY❓Mechanisms:

1️⃣ A direct channel✅
Adaptation is concentrated in individuals more exposed to commerce and whose livelihood depends on it
⏩ More frequent and beneficial exchanges with strangers and increased economic interdependence is a key driver

14/17

Cultural adaptation paid off❗
Families who adjusted to the local, market-integrated norms had:

▪️Higher property values 📈🏡
▪️Lower child mortality 📉👶🪦

13/17

HOW❓

We track domestic migrants and find:

❌ Selective sorting

✅ Adaptation: People moving to more market-integrated areas adapted quickly

⬆️They become more universalistic
⬆️Higher cooperation in the labor force
⬆️More cooperation with non-kin at home

12/17

🧩 Then we ask: Did greater market access lead to more generalized cooperative culture and behavior?

✅ YES ‼️

1️⃣ strengthened generalized cooperative cultural traits
2️⃣ increased impersonal cooperation
3️⃣ reduced kin-based cooperation

11/17

Our cultural and behavioral measures are deeply connected. Generalized cooperative culture is associated with:

⬆️ More impersonal cooperative behavior
⬇️ Less kin-based cooperation

10/17

For cooperative behavior, we measure:

🤝 Impersonal cooperation across different spheres of social life: at work, in innovation, at home, and within the community

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦👴👵 Kin-based cooperation with the share of vulnerable individuals cared for by relatives at home

9/17

🧠 We measure generalized cooperative culture focusing on universalism, tolerance, and generalized trust—traits supporting cooperation with strangers, using indicators from Raz (2025) and a novel NLP measure of local historical newspapers

8/17

We measure market integration using a county-level “Market Access” following Donaldson & Hornbeck (2016)

📈 Counties saw big, uneven increases in market access over time, driven by the expansion of the railroad network and by population growth 🚂🛤️

7/17

🌐Producers shifted from local subsistence to market-oriented production
🗺️ Long-distance trade rapidly expanded
🛒 Household consumption became increasingly reliant on distant sellers

6/17

To test these ideas empirically, we focus on 1850–1920 US.

During this period, the US became the world’s most integrated economy and transformed into a “market society,” where markets became a central organizing force of life:

5/17

Critics like Marx and Polanyi argued that markets erode morality, commodify social relationships, and foster alienation and exploitation

4/17

Philosophers and social scientists have debated the moral and social implications of markets for centuries, but it remains contested and politicized. Enlightenment thinkers such as Montesquieu and Smith argued that commerce softens manners and reduces prejudice

3/17

📢 In our 🆕working paper (with @raztzachi.bsky.social
), we show that as markets expanded, Americans became more universalistic, tolerant, trusting, and cooperative

🔗https://dropbox.com/scl/fi/xydg1vid6a8pw8zmvw8yc/Posch_Raz_Markets.pdf?rlkey=4b4qwrdkdv47ri5721mfwy92v&e=1&dl=0

2/17

✨Did markets make Americans more cooperative❓🔍

✅YES‼️

Between 1850 and 1920, the US became the largest and most integrated economy in the world 📶🌎

We show that this shift didn’t just move goods and affect prices—it fundamentally changed culture and behavior

🧵 👇 1/17

And we are live! #econsky @jpolecon.bsky.social

jpedataeditor.github.io

Kultur im Tierreich - Voneinander lernen - Die ganze Doku | ARTE Bei Menschen wie bei Tieren beruht die Weitergabe von Kultur auf sozialem Lernen. Vier Arten geben Einblicke in die Kulturvermittlung im Tierreich: Kohlmeisen und Grünmeerkatzen lernen die Tricks der ...

For German and French speakers interested in animal culture, this doco will be well worth 43 mins of your time. For everyone else, great tits solving puzzle boxes speak for themselves 🐦🧩🧠@lucymaplin.bsky.social @mchimento.bsky.social

www.arte.tv/de/videos/11...

📌 Excited to announce the 2nd Northeast Political Economy Conference 📌 We (briangknight.bsky.social) are seeking submissions from economists & political scientists working on political economy topics.

Please submit by June 16 and join us at Brown on Friday, Oct 3 forms.gle/i4wi88Q6P3tJ...

YouTube video by FBE UniMelb Cultures in Crisis? Cultural Evolution and the Potential for Global Mismatch

Best video to watch during the Easter break 🥚🐣 youtu.be/lmIABocWBHI?...

Field Research Intern - UC San Diego Economics | The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab

Please consider applying for a summer RA position in Mozambique. Project with Fulvia Budillon and Andre Gray on traditional medicine. Must speak Portuguese. Job info: www.povertyactionlab.org/careers/fiel... Send materials to fbudillo@ucsd.edu and adgray@ucsd.edu, subject Mozambique Intern. Thanks!

Registration is open for the 9th Text-As-Data Workshop!
When: 28-29 April 2025
Where: Online
Organisers: @elliottash.bsky.social @essobecker.bsky.social @phinifa.bsky.social
More information: cepr.org/events/9th-m...
#EconSky #Workshop #Conference

After being an editor for 6.5 years (4 REStud; 2.5 JEEA), I have accumulated a few suggestions that can help you avoid unnecessary rejections.

1/19: Seems timely to share a paper which explores how people perceive & understand trade and trade policies. Which factors shape the support for different trade policies? Thread below with the key takeaways #EconTwitter 🧵, and full paper here: socialeconomicslab.org/understandin...

Call for papers, 2025 AI in social science conference, September 25-26

Submit your work using AI in the social sciences to the annual AI in Social Science conference at The University of Chicago! Submissions due May 1!

The conference will be held September 25-26 in Chicago, IL, USA.

@beckerfriedman.bsky.social @HarrisPolicy @MiiELab

bfi.uchicago.edu/events/event...

The Price of Faith: Economic Costs and Religious Adaptation in Sub-Saharan Africa | Becker Friedman Institute Prior research shows that religious institutions play a major role in shaping economic behaviors, social norms, and development outcomes worldwide. But what happens when religious membership (or belie...

As opportunity costs rise for Seventh Day Adventists in Sub-Saharan Africa, membership and satisfaction decline, and adherence to health rules drops. New research brief from
@eduardomontero.bsky.social (Harris Policy), Dean Yang, and Triana Yentzen. ow.ly/CN5g50VgL9z #EconSky