اعتقادات فرهنگی مبتنی بر نهادهای بازار کار

This paper has two main goals. The first is to provide empirical evidence that differences in labor market institutions across countries and, specifically, in how they provide protection to workers, can be attributed to underlying differences in culturally based prior beliefs: in particular, people's fatalism and trust in others. The second goal is to single out the socio-economic determinants of these beliefs and the role of education in this regard.

The interactions between culture and institutions and the link between institutions and economic performance are at the forefront of economic analysis. In particular, fatalism and trust in others appear two among the most important culturally based prior beliefs that impact on institutions. But while the connection between trust and institutions has been widely investigated, the role of fatalism, notwithstanding its importance in people's socio-economic attitudes, is almost neglected. It is surprising that a personality trait so important in characterizing people's expectations concerning the link between actions and results has received so little attention, particularly in regard to analysis of the labor market and its institutions.

People's identities and choices can be linked to psychological traits and culturally based values and prior beliefs. The latter also shape the identities of groups and countries (Akerlof and Kranton, 2000). Our analysis has shown that people's fatalism and trust in others affect their choices concerning how protection should be given to workers, and that this may explain observed international differences among labor market institutions. Our paper adds study of the important role played by people's fatalism, hitherto neglected, to the existing economic literature on the link between labor market institutions and culturally based prior beliefs. In addition, it provides evidence on the relation between individual socio-demographic characteristics and these beliefs, giving support to the idea that fatalism and trust in others are culturally based psychological traits that can be partly affected by people's education.