CAREER: Culture, Context, and Development Policy: An Interdisciplinary Research and Training Program

本CAREER提案使用四个项目来研究文化如何与政策相互作用从而影响发展成果。文化对包括治理、人力资本投资、合作范围和程度在内的各种成果都有重要影响。经济学家试图理解文化差异的驱动因素，以及各种文化实践对关键经济结果的影响。CAREER项目的主题是，来自人类学、文化和当地背景的见解有助于解释各国发展政策成功的差异，如果使用得当，可能会改善发展政策的设计和有效性。第一个项目研究如何提高地方领导的问责性和绩效；第二个项目研究土著机构和发展倡议之间的不匹配如何阻碍这些倡议的成功，而第三个项目研究社会结构如何影响保险和合作。最后的项目将为许多发展中国家数字化一个新的、大型的、创新的民族志数据，这将是为数不多的同类数据集之一。该项目的成果将提高发展政策的效率，从而减少世界各地的贫困。此外，研究结果将有助于提高美国对外援助项目的有效性，从而有助于美国保持其在减贫领域的全球领导地位。该研究包括四个项目，研究文化如何与政策相互作用，以解释各国发展结果的异质性，并为进化人类学的文献做出贡献。这些项目结合了多种方法：随机对照试验、现场实验室实验、原始调查以及档案和民族志数据的数字化。第一个项目使用随机对照试验来调查是否可以利用增加地方领导人问责制的社会结构来改善公共产品的提供。第二个项目为私有（相对于公有）土地权利的生态起源提供了新的证据，并探讨了传统产权结构如何影响土地所有权的努力。第三个项目研究母系亲属制度如何影响大家庭中的合作和保险，将经济学对核心家庭的传统关注扩展到扩大的亲属关系。第四个项目是一项创新的数据数字化工作，旨在为一些发展中国家提供新的民族志数据。这些项目的结果将有助于深入了解文化如何影响发展政策的效力，以及对当地环境的更深入了解如何改善发展倡议。除了改善发展政策成果外，研究结果还将有助于提高美国对外援助的有效性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This CAREER proposal uses four projects to study how culture interacts with policy to affect development outcomes. Culture has important implications for a wide variety of outcomes, including governance, human capital investment, and the scope and extent of cooperation. Economists have sought to understand the drivers of variation in culture, and the consequences of various cultural practices for key economic outcomes. The theme of this CAREER project is that insights from anthropology, culture, and local context can help explain differences in development policy success across countries and if appropriately used, may improve the design and effectiveness of development policies. The first project studies how to improve accountability and performance of local leaders; the second studies how a mismatch between indigenous institutions and development initiatives hinders the success of such initiatives, while the third project studies how social structures affect insurance and cooperation. The final project digitizes a new, large, and innovative ethnographic data for many developing countries that will be one of the few data sets of its kind. The results of this project will improve the efficiency of development policies, hence reduce poverty around the world. In addition, the results will help improve the effectiveness of US foreign aid programs, hence help the US maintain its global leadership in poverty reduction.The research consists of four projects to study how culture interacts with policy to explain the heterogeneity in development outcomes across countries as well as contribute to the literature in evolutionary anthropology. The projects combine a variety of methods: randomized controlled trials, lab-in-the-field experiments, original surveys, and digitization of archival and ethnographic data. The first project uses RCT to investigate whether social structures that increase accountability of local leaders can be leveraged to improve the provision of public goods. The second project provides new evidence on the ecological origins of private, relative to communal, land rights and explores how traditional property rights structures affect efforts to title land. The third project studies how matrilineal kinship systems affect cooperation and insurance in the extended family, expanding the traditional focus within economics on the nuclear family to extended kinship. The fourth project is an innovative data digitization effort to provide access to new ethnographic data for several developing countries. The results of these projects will provide insight into how culture affects the efficacy of development policy, and how greater understanding of local context can improve development initiatives. Besides improving development policy outcomes, the results will also help improve the effectiveness of US foreign aid.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.