Commemorative Stamps as a Recognition Tool: A Cross-Sectional Analysis

Commemorative stamps have a place in the cultural, economic, and geopolitical status of a nation; and the nature of what is printed on stamps is very much a re�ection of the culture, regime, and values of a country. Whilst commemorative stamps can be a source of celebration for monuments, �ora and fauna, and key points in a nation’s history; they are also a source of recognition, designed to publicly celebrate and showcase the contribution of key �gures based on their performance in areas deemed signi�cant to the nation’s culture and evolution. In this empirical study, we analyse commemorative stamp data in a cross-sectional setting to understand key determinants that shape their provision. The award literature has developed some propositions that so far have not been tested empirically. We �nd strong evidence that the political process strongly in�uences the use of postage stamps as a recognition tool. The political regime as well as governance matter. For example, controlling for regime, more corrupt countries are more likely to use stamps to recognize personalities. On the other hand, more democratic regimes are more frequently using stamps as a recognition tool. We also �nd that cultural factors and ideologies show substantial heterogeneity in their in�uence while factors such as fractionalization or income inequality do not seem to matter. Factors such as personal and impersonal pro-sociality or creativity seemed to reduce the need for stamps as a recognition tool, while other factors such as market orientation, individualism, or traditionalism encourage the use of stamps to recognize individuals. Overall, we �nd that some results are consistent with the theoretical propositions while others are not, requiring more empirical evidence around awards and a better understanding of how stamps differ from other recognitions.


Introduction
In 2021, the Science publication staff writer Adrian Cho (2021) highlighted that "[a] physicist has a much better chance of winning a Nobel Prize than appearing on a postage stamp" [1].This narrative was detailed while celebrating the recognition of regarded physicist Chien-Shuing Wu, who despite never winning a Nobel Prize for her contributions to the eld, did manage to achieve recognition in the form of her presence on a postage stamp.
Postage stamps and philately, more broadly, are well documented through historical, geopolitical and cultural literature.Not simply a tool to support message transfers between local, national or international locations, stamps also play a role in representing a country's values and for communicating important ideological topics at a given time in country's existence.
There is substantial empirical coverage regarding the process, importance, and relevance of postage stamps in the literature.Commemorative stamps have a place in the cultural, economic, and geopolitical status of a nation; and the nature of what is printed on stamps is often a re ection of the norms that exist within that nation at the time.As highlighted by L.N. and M. Williams in 1956, " [s]tamps have proved themselves to be tokens and signposts of modern civilisation.They re ect the course of history through their designs, inscriptions, values, and colours" (Brunn, 2001, p. 315).
Being in existence for nearly two centuries, postage stamps existed before the internet, telecommunications, and other new media; with their popularity and relevance now all but removed to all other than committed collectors (philatelists).Postal communications through letters, postcards and the telegram revolutionised people's contact with a person's broader world (Sharma, 2021;Jones, 2001), so while their place in the community was initially one of pragmatic utility, stamps have since evolved to be more commemorative in nature, celebrating speci c icons or events, and gifting reward and recognition to them.
In terms of their core function, stamps carry the name of the issuing country, statement of value, and an image that often commemorates a special event, person, or an achievement.Communities often know these events and people because their fame reaches national or international levels (Raento & Brunn, 2008, p. 49).However, stamps are also o cial products of government, who use them to send messages to the public.They are useful ideological and cultural artefacts, and a means for government to promote certain images at home and abroad (Jones, 2001).Stamps are a mass medium, used to commemorate events or raise public awareness about topics of wide social interest or in uence; they remain a way for governments to communicate on a broad scale regarding important topics of value to their nation, or to raise funds for regime implementation or state sovereignty commercialization (Lefrère, 2021;Slemrod, 2008;Brunn, 2001).Ultimately, stamps provide a platform for a country to communicate to the world what is important, developing and preserving national values, traditions, themes, and individuals (Limor & Tamir, 2021, p. 496).Thus, once printed, they are a historical artefact, locked in time for collectors and other interested parties, showcasing and recognising the priorities of the country.
Whilst the literature does present stamps as an evolving communications medium, stamps have also been useful for historians interested in national identities and o cial cultures, with stamps conveying messages about the national culture, and the attitude of a country's people towards particular subject matters (Jones, 2001).Additionally, as noted by Osmond (2008, p. 326), to underestimate the impact of postage stamps on these grounds is to misunderstand the way in which they may work in concert with other forms of social memory to create histories.
For a small token created to support message transfer, stamps tell a signi cant story related to the evolution of a country's values and culture; with some of the major topics and subject matters featured on stamps in the past presenting a diverse array of sovereign priorities and how they have changed to re ect that culture over time (Hofstede, 2011;McSweeney, 2009;Weaver, 1986).For example, the main categories of stamps include major events in history, major sources of income, coats of arms of major cities, key political, religious, and academic personalities, and monuments.Some stamps have depicted the creation of their sovereign boundaries over time, changes in ags and currency, traditional crafts and paintings, national parks, tourist attractions, unique geological formations, biological habitats, folk costumes, house types, farm implements, musical instruments, church architecture, religious icons, and various ora and fauna.Additionally, stamps have been printed to recognise international events, including the Olympic Games, and other key events in a nation's history (Brunn, 2001, p. 318).The variety and diversity of imagery featured on stamps across the globe over the decades has been signi cant; and not bound to a particular subject matter.
Stamps, a somewhat innocuous and tiny receipt for the postage paid for (inter)national delivery of mail has thus turned them into an iconographical promotional tool of a particular world view and culture.Because of this socially constructed, state-related nature, stamps are socio-political statements and tools for nation-building and moulding of public's collective memory (Raento & Brunn, 2008, p. 50).Stamps therefore conform to, and execute the "role of 'paper ambassador' of the issuing state by promoting its national identity, soft power, and national brand beyond the national borders" (Sharma, 2021, p. 541).Their ability to circulate globally on interpersonal mail and through collector networks, add to their semiotic power (Raento, 2006;Limor & Mekelberg, 2017).
These key summaries from Stanley Brunn, a well-established researcher in the space of philately, combined with the research of other philately-based researchers such as Pauliina Raento form one of the core tenets of this study where we empirically study the role that stamps play in not only representing the values and norms of a country.This premise, intersecting with the research undertaken by Frey (2006) in the space of recognition via awards, form the basis of this paper.
Commemorative stamps, as will be discussed in this paper, can be seen as a form of ex ante, non-monetary award; a method of recognising the efforts, notoriety, and the importance of various gureheads within a society.Through taking an empirical approach to analysing commemorative stamp data using parts of Frey's conceptual analysis, we seek to add depth and insight to the nature of what and how regimes employ stamps as a recognition tool.
We will explore in more detail whether there is a relationship in how countries recognise their popular gures via postage stamps and their political regime or governance.We will, for example, determine whether there are other relationships that exist such as culture and values of country, or how fractionalized or pro-social the population of a country is.These and more will be evaluated in this paper, which is novel in the space of both economic, political and cultural analysis.At time of writing, no analysis has been undertaken in understanding how commemorative stamps have been represented globally as a recognition tool; nor has any analysis been undertaken using statistical analysis methods to understand the relationship between stamps and recognition in any relevant area of literature.Moreover, some propositions we are testing have been formulated in the award literature but have not been empirically tested.Stamps, due to their cross-cultural homogeneity and application, provide a wonderful empirical environment to test the propositions previously discussed in the literature empirically through a cross-country analysis.

Stamps And Politics
Stamps convey important visible messages about a state's heritage and worldview.Postage stamps are 'windows' of the state, as through its stamp issues, the state can decide what it wants to show to others about itself (Covington & Brunn, 2006, p. 125).This view is supported by Hammett (2014, p. 901) who details that stamps have provided a means through which to portray to domestic and international audiences the values, ideologies, aspirations, and ideals of the state.Stamps inform and educate their own populations and those beyond about where they are, who they are, and what they are about (Brunn, 2011, p. 19).Stamps at their centre, are a method of national self-identity and promotion.
As shared by Raento (2006, p. 602), most postage stamps are o cial state documents.Their power to communicate comes from their institutional status, picture, and other semiotic characteristics and nally, circulation.This perspective is shared by Brunn (2001, p. 315) who discusses that due to a stamp's international distribution, its images, symbols, and icons can be used to inform citizens, and promote a sense of nationalism, regionalism, and transnationalism.Stamps are essentially a way for a government to publicly, and subtly, communicate their cultural and political strengths to the world.
Governments use stamps to project a controlled image of their country and to indeed make a statement (Jones, 2001), with many governments realising stamps are a valuable medium with which to convey and transmit their policies (Adedze, 2012, p. 294).The visual iconography of stamps is both politically and ideologically charged and helps a state consolidate its national imagery among its subjects (Sharma, 2021, p. 541).
Additionally, a stamp's semiotic qualities connected to political power make them a prime persuasive and propaganda tool (Altman, 1991;Reid, 1993).The stamps' commemorative, celebratory, or advertising imagery conveys the national elite's understanding of their country's contribution to the world, and the power of stamps con rm that they are essential to consider as part of understanding the mundane, every day, often subconscious rituals they instil, and the role they play in reinforcing political identity and conveying a sense of belonging amongst a country's people (Raento, 2006;Adedze, 2012).It is very much a case of what is printed on a stamp is a re ection of what a nation deems most important to reward and recognize at a particular point in its history; and a tool of promoting a country's ideology and political orientation.
Stamps, initially developed as a means of nancing the delivery of letters and parcels, became corporate agencies, tools of reward, and tiny conveyers of national messaging.Whilst they are generally perceived as a benign or subtle representation of sovereignty, stamps can be seen not only as a messaging platform but also a channel for cultivating the seeds of nationalism (Limor & Zelkovitz, 2021, p. 212), and an opportunity for a recipient to 'read' a country's or state's history through them (Covington & Brunn, 2006).

Awards And Recognition
As highlighted by Frey (2006, p. 377), awards in the form of orders, medals, decorations, prizes and titles are ubiquitous in all facets of our societal communities -from monarchies and republics, to organisations, not for pro t organisations and more.They are omnipresent in the modern economy with few industries left where no awards of excellence or recognition are given (Gemser et al., 2008, p. 25).These various forms of recognition are not always expensive to produce, nor large in size or weight, but carry with them an element of prestige and symbolism that ties the recipient to the giver; forging a sense of loyalty.Awards are, by their very nature, designed to provide recognition to those who best exemplify the norms and goals held by the awarding body (Frey & Gallus, 2017, p. 190).
Much of the literature tends to be quite dismissive of awards that do not have a nancial reward component, and that awards aren't researched or represented heavily in economic literature; with the main discussion being that nonmonetary awards may be ineffective as a motivational device as they hold limited marginal utility (Frey, 2006, p. 378).This perspective is supported by research performed by Chan et al. (2014, p. 188) in researching the use of honours and performance within the academic sector pointing out that the use of awards is universal but not well understood empirically.
In contradiction to these perspectives, however, rewards can serve a useful economic function.They can be perceived as gratuitous acknowledgements of merit, independent of the economic value created by the receiver, while also inducing the receiver to create economic value (Sugden, 2019, p.8).This is supported by Ghobadi and Robey (2017, p. 361) who elaborate that awards in the academic context motivate scholars, intensify the competition for discoveries, and stimulate increased scienti c productions; with scholars motivated to seek awards because they help to establish social distinction that is not achievable by other means.
It is the nature of awards being an important producer of status and prestige and can often be the only option available for an entity to reward exceptional performance or recognition; as awards that do not carry a monetary bene t, can be perceived as more valuable, as recipients can derive value from the symbolic nature of the award being granted (Gallus et al., 2017).This sentiment is supported by Mixon et al. (2017Mixon et al. ( , p. 1841)), who furthered Frey and Neckermann's (2017, p. 199) discussion around awards (particularly in academic contexts); stating that awards serve as a direct incentive as people exert effort explicitly to achieve the award, and by doing so, highlight societal values and bring prestige.The nature of commemorative stamps as a form of non-monetary, ex ante award can be re ected in the literature discussed in this paper.

Motivation for wanting awards
Many people are extremely fond of awards.In part because of their ability to convey appreciation (Frey & Neckermann, 2008, p. 199).The demand for social recognition is a major feature of human beings (Brennan & Pettit, 2004).This is supported in various other literature, particularly around strategic management, human resources, and other research disciplines.Awards (particularly ex ante awards) contain a strong signalling function on behalf of both the giver and receiver.
On the part of the giver, they serve as an indication as to what behaviour is desired by those higher in a social or corporate hierarchy; and on behalf of the receiver, signal superior talent and motivation, improve career opportunities, and tend to generate material and lasting effects (Styhre & Brorström, 2021;Frey, 2007).People across a variety of contexts and situations have an inherent need to feel appreciated for what they do, who they are, and to be recognized (Saunderson, 2019, p. 54).Thus, awards are valuable for their recipients when revealing/signalling their talent and commitment, allowing award winners to engage in bene cial new commercial and personal relationships, gain status and a new sense of agency and legitimacy (Jensen et al., 2022;Frey et al., 2014).
In addition to this appreciation and recognition, additional reasons explaining people's fondness for awards are that they establish a special relationship between the donor and the recipient, forging a sense of loyalty (as aforementioned).Awards tend to include social and material advantages (although they can simply be symbolic in nature), and awards grant the recipient elevated social status; providing them with a platform to receive a point of difference from other people in their communities, and enjoy public celebration (Frey & Gallus, 2017, p. 191).This was initially established by Frey (2006, p. 379) when he stated that the quest for social distinction is a hardwired trait of human nature.
Frey noted through his 2006 conceptual narrative analysis paper that several characteristics determined the underlying motivation for people to desire awards, and included characteristics such as the fractionalization and isolation of the society they live in, how much they earn (i.e.income), the quality of the award being bestowed, the economic effect of the award, the ideology of the market in which the award is being given, and nally, the history of the country in which the award takes its origin.It is these characteristics and more that form the basis of this empirical study.
It is, therefore, a natural avenue to align the theoretical and empirical literature around the motivation and nature of awards as a form of recognition, and the study of stamps as a way in which a nation leverages stamps as a nonmonetary form of award to extend recognition.As postage stamps are considered a form of soft diplomacy or propaganda for the home country's political regime or identity, they are also very much a form of recognition; particularly for those politicians, sportspeople, celebrities, and others who have contributed their skills and capabilities for the betterment of their country (and sometimes beyond their own country's borders).Commemorative stamps are considered a form of award in the sense that they are a form of recognition that is publicly celebrated.
The public nature of the award being given is its distinguishing feature from other forms of awards (Gallus & Frey, 2017, p. 76).Substantiated by Styhre and Brorström (2021, p. 16), ex ante awards play a substantial role in shaping and sustaining political coalitions, and, to generate media attention and other forms of public attention.
With stamps being a soft propaganda tool locked in space and time, and a visible, public marker of recognition, this study presents an innovative opportunity to analyse and empirically understand the relationship that the areas of philately and phaleristics have in an innovative and previously unobserved way.Frey and Gallus (2017) emphasize that despite the widespread importance of awards they have been largely disregarded in social sciences, and an area in particular, where more empirical evidence is needed.

Data
For this analysis, we curated a dataset comprising the lists of people on postage stamps of 131 countries from Wikipedia (accessed August 2011, covering as early as 1840) [2].A customised JavaScript was used to access and extract information from various Wikipedia pages, including the names of the people on the postage stamps, the years when they appeared on a stamp, and the link to the Wikipedia page of the person when available.
In order to create a variable measuring the intensity of using stamps as a symbolic award to recognise individuals, we counted the number of unique individuals in a country on a postage stamp [3] and divided it by the number of years between the rst and last individual postage stamp issued.For this study, this will be the core dependent variable.For each individual, we also classi ed them into seven categories [4] using keywords from their description (e.g., architect).These categories (and example of related keywords) are political (e.g., statesman, minister), business (e.g., industrialist, entrepreneur), cultural (e.g., painter, sculptor), sportsman (e.g., athlete, olympic), science (e.g., anthropologist, biologist), religious (e.g., missionary, bishop), and war-related (e.g., commander, wwii).
To conduct our analysis, we gathered the following country-level variables from various databases up to the time available as of 2022.First, we included the 'Polity Score' (revised combined) from the Polity5 Project, which measures the democratic-autocratic polity regime of the country (with higher values being more democratic).Second, we included measures of institutional quality from the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) (e.g., control of corruption, voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence/terrorism, and rule of law) (higher values indicate better institutional qualities).As a robustness check, we also used the measure of corruption from the International Country Risk Guide (ICRG) and the press freedom score from the Freedom House, from 0 (most free) to 100 (least free).Third, we included a set of variables measuring market ideology.This includes the market orientation index from Gorodnichenko and Roland (2011, p. 497) that we constructed based on responses from four survey questions of the World Values Survey (WVS) [5].
Furthermore, we included the country's Gini coe cient as a measure of income inequality.Estimates from the CIA World Factbook and the World Bank were used.We also included the tax burden measure of Economic Freedom of the World Index, which is derived from the marginal tax rates on individual and corporate income and the total tax burden as percentage of GDP.Additionally, we included the standardised measure of creativity from the WVS, based on respondents' view on the statement "think up new ideas and be creative; to do things one's own way" (Schulz et al., 2019, p. 4).
Fourth, we included cultural variables (standardised) such as individualism (Hofstede, 2011), embeddedness (Schwartz, 2006), and tradition (WVS) [6].Fifth, we used monarchy as a measure of aristocratic tradition (as opposed to republican).We constructed two versions of the variable based on the binary coding from Gerring et al. (2021), that is, a dummy variable indicating whether the country has a monarchy historically and a variable measuring the fraction of years in which there is a monarchy.Sixth, we used total tax revenue as a percentage of GDP (World Bank estimate) and the fraction of blood donations to family members (out of the total blood donations) (WHO).Lastly, to measure fractionalization and isolation of societies, we use the ethnic, linguistic, and religious fractionalisation indices from Alesina et al. (2004).For control variables, we included GDP per capita (in 10 thousand) and total population (in million).Both variables were obtained from the World Bank estimates.
[4] An individual may be classi ed in multiple categories.[5] For example, one question asks the respondent to rate their views on the following statement: Private ownership should be increased.The market orientation index was calculated using the aggregated normalised values at the country level.Higher values mean higher market orientation.

Results
Regime and Governance Frey (2006) points out that governments grant a great number of awards in order to bind the recipients to their regime and that this trend is seen more in authoritarian and dictatorial regimes.Thus, a core independent variable in our analysis will be to explore the polity score.Throughout the entire analysis, we report speci cations using OLS regressions.We report robust standard errors and, in some estimations, we present standard errors adjusted clustering over major world regions to control for regional heterogeneity (Eastern Europe and post-Soviet Union, Latin America, North Africa & the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, Western Europe and North America, East Asia, South-East Asia, South Asia, the Paci c, and the Caribbean).We report standardized coe cients to identify the relative importance of the different factors explored.
Based on the results shown in Table 1, we can see that across the 106 observations in the data, an opposite effect that Frey (2006) proposes is found.We see a stronger presence of more democratic regimes using stamps as a method of recognition and celebration than other regime structures.For example, speci cation (4) indicates that an increase of one standard deviation in polity score produces an increase of 0.19 standard deviations in number of people appearing on stamps per year.As can be seen in Table 1 we have sequentially added further variables to check the robustness.Even after controlling for control of corruption, the coe cient remains highly statistically signi cant with a positive sign (even stronger effects than in previous speci cations).This notwithstanding, once you control for regimes, aspects such as corruption and governance seem to matter, in that the more corrupt regimes tend to use, ceteris paribus, stamps more as a form of award with their population, which is more in line with what Frey (2006) proposes in his theoretical analysis.The corruption effect is even stronger than the polity score one.An increase of one standard deviation in control of corruption [7] leads to a decrease of the number of people featured separately on postage stamps by 0.38 standard deviations.As for the control variables, we found that economic performance as well as population size are positively correlated with recognising people in stamps.Moreover, all the results reported remain robust when clustering over regions.Next, we checked whether other governance factors from the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) factors show a similar effect as the corruption variable (Table 2).We focused on voice and accountability, political stability, and rule of law.All those factors showed a similar negative sign which means that lower levels of governance quality are correlated, ceteris paribus, with more frequent use of people on postage stamps.The strongest effect is for voice and accountability.Speci cation (1) indicates that a one standard deviation increase in voice and accountability produces a decrease of 0.77 deviations in featuring people on postage stamps which is an effect that is almost twice as large as for corruption.As for the other factors, the coe cients are only statistically signi cant at the conventional level once you cluster over the regions.The effects are also smaller than for corruption.Throughout all speci cations, the polity score remains statistically signi cant.

Freedom of the Press and Corruption
As an alternative to governance, we also explored freedom of the press (see Table 3).In addition, we checked the robustness of corruption by using an alternative proxy, namely the ICRG corruption value.The results obtained are very similar.A lower level of press freedom is positively correlated with the use of stamps, and the less corrupt a country is, the lower the use of stamps, holding other factors constant (including the regime).The polity score regime variable itself remains positive and statistically signi cant (larger effect size when controlling for press freedom than corruption).One should note that working with ICRG data reduces the number of observations.Overall, the results so far appear to be consistent with the published literature on how stamps are used as a propaganda tool, or to inspire nationalism and to garner public support for the regime.

Market Ideology, Income Inequality, and Creativity
The more highly a society esteems material success relative to non-material success, the less effort individuals devote to gaining awards (Frey, 2006).As further expanded by Frey, capitalist societies tend to measure success according to income, with societies that have a marked aversion to income tend to turn more to awards in order to assert their status.However, this is not what we nd (see Table 4).We observe that countries with a stronger market orientation are also more active in terms of featuring people on postage stamps controlling, for example, for economic development, governance and regime.Additionally, the income inequality structure of a country seems not to in uence the use of stamps in a statistically signi cant way.The negative sign indicates that it does not seem to be the case and, that the more equally income and wealth is distributed within a country, the more individuals may seek distinction in the form of awards, although it is noted in the literature that it can be hard for an individual to reach such as prestigious recognition as appearing on a stamp.
Frey (2006) also suggests that the higher the marginal tax rate on income, the larger the demand for awards.The argument is that when marginal taxes are quite high, awards become more attractive than higher income as a way of achieving social distinction.However, when focusing on an award that is very hard to obtain, namely, to end up on a postage stamp, that proposition is not supported.In fact, countries with a higher tax burden are less focused, ceteris paribus, on recognising their population through commemorative stamps.

Cultural Values and Monarchy
Individuals are in uenced in their evaluation of awards by the history of their society.According to Frey (2006), individuals value awards more in countries where awards have existed for extended periods of time and have played a key role in establishing the social hierarchy of a country.Countries such as the United Kingdom and Denmark, to name a few, have orders and decorations held in high esteem as they have been used extensively across their society.Through taking this perspective from Frey and intersecting it with Gerring et al.'s (2021) analysis on monarchies, the proposition is that societies with an aristocratic tradition have a higher demand for state awards than societies with republication traditions.For example, the rst stamp was printed in the United Kingdom in 1840 to honor Queen Victoria (known as the Penny Black) (Limor & Tamir, 2021).This stands to support the notion that monarchies tend to use stamps as a form of recognition of their key gureheads.However, when looking at our data we do not nd support for this notion (Table 5).The coe cient for both monarchy proxies is negative and not statistically signi cant.Thus, although there is substantial anecdotal evidence for using stamps in more aristocratic societies that relation does not hold in our empirical analysis.
We also explore a set of cultural factors in more detail.Hofstede's individualism scale is a natural candidate.Individualistic societies may have a stronger level of acceptance to use instruments that help their citizens to distinguish themselves from other individuals.On other hand, those societies may have alternative channels to achieve distinction (e.g., via income, wealth etc.), therefore putting less pressure on individuals to establish social distinction by gaining awards.Frey (2006), for example, refers to the frequent use of awards in post-Soviet Union era (e.g., Hero of Socialist Labour), also citing Phillips (2004), who identi ed that about 1 in every 1,000 Russians had received a state award.Interestingly, we nd that more individualistic societies are more frequently featuring people on postage stamps holding other factors such as the political regime constant.Consistent with that result, we nd that countries with higher scores of embeddedness are less frequently reporting people on their stamps.Schwartz (2006) points out that in cultures with an emphasis on embeddedness, people are viewed as part of a collective: "[m]eaning in life comes largely through social relationships, through identifying with the group, participating in its shared way of life, and striving toward its shared goals" (p.140).On the other hand, more traditionalistic-oriented societies are more frequently reporting people on their postage stamps while societies that care more about obedience report less.Thus, one can see the multi-dimensionality of culture affecting the use of people on stamps within a country.Personal and Impersonal Prosociality and Fractionalization As a proxy of personal prosociality we analysed tax effort/performance (tax revenue/ GDP), which measures how much a country is able to tax relative to its measure of capacity (Table 6).It has been shown empirically that societal institutions have an important impact on the level of tax performance or effort (Bird et al., 2006).If taxpayers nd their interests and preferences properly represented (e.g., an adequate level of public goods), tax performance increases (Torgler, 2007).Thus, higher values of tax performance can be seen as indicators of a nancially healthier society that is willing to contribute to the public goods.As a proxy of impersonal prosociality we focus on voluntary, unpaid blood donations per 1000 people (Schulz et al., 2019, p. 4).In both cases, higher levels of prosociality reduce the need or interest to use stamps as an individual reward mechanism to recognise their population on postage stamps holding other factors constant such as political regime and governance.Furthermore, we also looked at fractionalization.Individuals who have an uncertain standing in their community tend to have a greater demand for awards.Further, societies that tend to have their populations dispersed more greatly across their geography, and where community mobility is low, social distinction and hierarchies have been developed by history (Frey, 2006, p. 381).If a population is inherently diverse by race, language, religion, culture and via other visible characteristics, there is little demand for recognition via awards; whereas if a society is more homogenous in nature, awards tend to be, according to Frey (2006) sought at a greater rate.However, based on our results looking at three different dimensions of fractionalization, we nd that the correlation (negative for linguistic and ethnic fractionalization and positive for religious fractionalization) is not statistically signi cant.

Individual Professional Classi cations
Finally, we wanted to see whether the obtained correlation between regime and governance holds once we classi ed the type of individuals who appear on postage stamps (see Table 7).We would, for example, expect that such a relationship should, in particular, hold for politicians.And this is indeed what we observe.Besides political persons, we also nd that the relationship holds for war-related personalities and cultural personalities.Regime also matters for religious personalities, while governance (corruption) for business gureheads does not.On the other hand, political factors are less relevant for scientists and sports athletes.Thus, those closer to the political power seemed to matter more, which is as expected.

Conclusions And Future Perspectives
In existence for over 200 years, stamps have played an important role in demonstrating the achievements, values, culture, and people of a nation on an international scale.Not merely a tool for supporting international message distribution, stamps recognise and award the subject matters and people of importance, and seeks to celebrate that which the country deems valuable to share to a global audience.
It is the nature of stamps and how they have been employed for centuries that provides a connection to the literature regarding the nature of awards as a form of recognition.The use of awards across several societal contexts and industries is being more and more explored empirically.Awards are used to recognise, celebrate, and signal to a broader community the values and behaviours that are deemed important to their cause.
It is these two bodies of literature that come together in this study empirically.Through this paper, we have observed the nature of the relationship of regime to recognition.We have seen that, both regime and governance matter when using stamps to recognise the people that they deem important; albeit the use of stamps as a tool of recognition is likely to be under different conditions, of somewhat different intentions, under different regimes.Cultural factors may also have different channels in the way that may in uence the use of stamps in a country.However, we have found that several untested propositions in the literature of awards and recognitions were not supported based on our analysis.One potential reason for our results could be that appearing on a postage stamp is a very rare event for individuals in society (as noted in our introduction).Thus, this could affect the motivation and aspiration to achieve or receive such an award.Future studies could explore in more detail whether we nd a correlation between appearances on postage stamps and other societal recognitions that appear more frequently in society.However, the challenge is to nd enough consistency in the award bestowal that would allow a cross-country analysis for other recognition types to be undertaken.
Overall, due to lack of empirical evidence, this paper, and the results contained within it, present some interesting observations for taking an empirical approach to understanding the nature of what and how countries recognise and honour people within their regimes through the commemorative postage stamp medium.We have observed largely consistent results to the descriptive analysis and literature undertaken by Frey, but also some noteworthy inconsistencies that form the foundation for future research opportunities.
Resulting from this paper, there are opportunities to build on this research further by delving deeper into the individual categories and industries (e.g., sports, cultural, political, war etc.) to determine if there are any relationships between country, person, and stamps and particular societal performance and orientation (e.g., sporting, scienti c success etc.).For example, are there particular cultural segments at an individual country level that suggest a greater priority and focus on recognising speci c areas of achievement?Additionally, there is further potential to investigate the stamp data against the legal and political lens of the country that printed them.Are there trends and consistencies with what countries recognise certain types of gureheads in philately at a micro level?Moreover, one can also try to extend the cross-country analysis with a panel analysis that, for example, focuses on major regime changes to get a better grasp of the causal relationship between political factors and recognition tools.These are just a sample of some interesting research questions to pursue in future studies.

Table 3
Robustness Looking at Freedom of Press and Corruption (ICRG)