Religious norms can undermine the effects of property rights institutions. Districts in colonial India that provided widows with rights to inherit the joint-family property of their deceased husband had significantly higher widow immolations than districts that did not. Religious elites (Brahmins) burnt disproportionately more widows, and widow immolations were higher in regions with a higher density of religious elites. The findings indicate that egalitarianism requires egalitarians. Elite norms embedded in religion can mediate the effects of property rights and lead to negative consequences.Keywords: property rights; violence against women; inheritance; religious norms Property rights institutions are widely believed to have a positive effect on development outcomes. 1 Social scientists have long argued that cultural norms such as intrinsic values, 2 social capital 3 and interpersonal trust 4 mediate the effect of institutions on development. 5 Nevertheless, there are limits to this mediation. Strong institutions can overcome cultural barriers. 6 Alternatively, institutions implement the cultural preferences of those in power. If property rights are in place, they already represent the preferences of the ruling coalition. As a consequence, strong property rights institutions created by those in power should increase the welfare of the recipients of property.This article presents one channel through which this logic might not hold. It demonstrates that property rights institutions can have a negative effect on their recipients if a subset of affected

Many scholars contend that the “Glorious” Revolution of 1688 restrained governmental abuses in Britain by preventing the Crown from engaging in irresponsible behavior. However, the question of whether it imposed similar restraints on Parliament has received limited scrutiny. This oversight applies in particular to the religious sphere and outside of England. Rather than create the general conditions for liberty, we contend that the institutional legacy of the Revolution of 1688 was biased toward those in the winning coalition and that its positive effect on liberty is overstated. Analyzing the institutional legacy of the Glorious Revolution on religion in Scotland, we use narrative evidence and systematic evaluation of legislation to show that, rather than establishing the conditions for religious liberty in Britain, the revolution transferred power from one denomination to the other. The arbitrary religious repression symptomatic of the prerevolutionary Crown persisted because the religious liberties enshrined in the Revolution depended largely on whether a group was a member of its winning coalition. Whereas the Crown and the Episcopalians suppressed the Presbyterians prior to 1688, afterward an alliance between the Scottish Presbyterians and the English Parliament reinstated Presbyterianism as the established Scottish Church. This reversal allowed the Presbyterians to suppress the Episcopalians. Religious tolerance and attendant civil rights expanded only with secularization in the nineteenth century when the political representation of other denominations and religions increased and factionalism undercut Presbyterian monopoly.

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One of the key areas in the sphere of small industry promotion is entrepreneurship development, which is widely recognised by all agencies concerned with the small industry in the country as an essential factor contributing to economic growth and employment generation in the developing economies. The responsibility for entrepreneurship development has been assumed by different agencies with varying degrees of involvement.

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