Culture, Diffusion, and Economic Development

Harutyunyan, Ani and Özak, Ömer (2016): Culture, Diffusion, and Economic Development.

Abstract

This research explores the effects of culture on technological diffusion and economic development. It shows that culture's direct effects on development and barrier effects to technological diffusion are, in general, observationally equivalent. In particular, using a large set of cultural measures, it establishes empirically that pairwise differences in contemporary development are associated with pairwise cultural differences relative to the technological frontier, only in cases where observational equivalence holds. Additionally, it establishes that differences in cultural traits that are correlated with genetic and linguistic distances are statistically and economically significantly correlated with differences in economic development. These results highlight the difficulty of disentangling the direct and barrier effects of culture, while lending credence to the idea that common ancestry generates persistence and plays a central role in economic development.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Comparative economic development, economic growth, culture, barriers to technological diffusion, genetic distances, linguistic distances
• Subjects: O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O10 - General; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O11 - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O2 - Development Planning and Policy > O20 - General; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O3 - Innovation ; Research and Development ; Technological Change ; Intellectual Property Rights > O33 - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences ; Diffusion Processes; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O4 - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity > O40 - General; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O4 - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity > O47 - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth ; Aggregate Productivity ; Cross-Country Output Convergence; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O5 - Economywide Country Studies > O57 - Comparative Studies of Countries; Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology > Z10 - General

References

Alesina, A. F. and Giuliano, P. (2013). Culture and institutions, NBER Working Paper (19750).

Alesina, A. and Giuliano, P. (2010). The power of the family, Journal of Economic growth 15(2): 93–125.

Alesina, A. and Giuliano, P. (2014). Family ties, Handbook of Economic Growth, Vol. 2, Elsevier, pp. 177–215.

Alesina, A., Giuliano, P. and Nunn, N. (2013). On the origins of gender roles: Women and the plough, The Quarterly Journal of Economics 128(2): 469–530.

Andersen, T. B., Bentzen, J., Dalgaard, C.-J. and Sharp, P. (2013). Pre-reformation roots of the protestant ethic, Technical report, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).

Basso, A. and Cuberes, D. (2016). Deep-rooted determinants of the fertility transition across countries., Macroeconomic Dynamics .

Cameron, A. C., Gelbach, J. B. and Miller, D. L. (2011). Robust inference with multiway clustering, Journal of Business & Economic Statistics 29(2).

Cavalli-Sforza, L. L., Menozzi, P. and Piazza, A. (1994). The history and geography of human genes, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.

Desmet, K., Le Breton, M., Ortun˜o-Ort´ın, I. and Weber, S. (2011). The stability and breakup of nations: a quantitative analysis, Journal of Economic Growth 16(3): 183–213.

Dohmen, T., Enke, B., Falk, A., Huffman, D. and Sunde, U. (2015). Patience and the wealth of nations.

Galor, O. and Özak, Ö . (2014). The agricultural origins of time preference, NBER Working Paper (w20438).

Galor, O., Özak, Ö . and Sarid, A. (2016). The geographical origins of the tower of babel: The economic causes and consequences of linguistic structures, SMU Working Paper .

Giuliano, P. (2007). Living arrangements in western europe: Does cultural origin matter?, Journal of the European Economic Association 5(5): 927–952.

Giuliano, P., Spilimbergo, A. and Tonon, G. (2006). Genetic, cultural and geographical distances, Technical report, CEPR Discussion Papers.

Gorodnichenko, Y. and Roland, G. (2011). Which dimensions of culture matter for long-run growth?, The American Economic Review 101(3): 492–498.

Guiso, L., Sapienza, P. and Zingales, L. (2006). Does culture affect economic outcomes?, Journal of Economic Perspectives 20(2): 23–48.

Guiso, L., Sapienza, P. and Zingales, L. (2009). Cultural biases in economic exchange?, The Quarterly Journal of Economics 124(3): 1095–1131.

Hofstede, G. H. (1980). Culture’s consequences: international differences in work-related values, Cross cultural research and methodology series, Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, Calif.

Hofstede, G. H. (1991). Cultures and organizations: software of the mind, McGraw-Hill, London.

Hofstede, G. H., Hofstede, G. J. and Minkov, M. (2010). Cultures and organizations: soft- ware of the mind : intercultural cooperation and its importance for survival, 3rd ed edn, McGraw-Hill, New York.

Inglehart, R. and Welzel, C. (2005). Modernization, cultural change, and democracy: the human development sequence, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

Inglehart, R. and Welzel, C. (2010). The wvs cultural map of the world, World Values Survey, http://www. worldvaluessurvey. org/wvs/articles/folder published/article base 54 (consult´e le 29 octobre 2012) .

Knack, S. and Keefer, P. (1997). Does social capital have an economic payoff ? a cross-country investigation, The Quarterly journal of economics pp. 1251–1288.

Spolaore, E. and Wacziarg, R. (2009a). The diffusion of development, The Quarterly Journal of Economics 124(2): 469–529.

Spolaore, E. and Wacziarg, R. (2009b). War and relatedness, Technical report, National Bureau of Economic Research.

Spolaore, E. and Wacziarg, R. (2012). Long-term barriers to the international diffusion of innovations, NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics, Vol. 8, JSTOR, pp. 11–46.

Spolaore, E. and Wacziarg, R. (2013a). How deep are the roots of economic development?, Journal of Economic Literature 51(2): 325–369.

Spolaore, E. and Wacziarg, R. (2013b). Long-term barriers to economic development, Tech- nical report, National Bureau of Economic Research.

Tabellini, G. (2010). Culture and institutions: economic development in the regions of europe, Journal of the European Economic Association 8(4): 677–716.

Weber, M. (1930). The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, Scribner, New York.

World Value Survey (1981-2014). World Values Survey Association (www.worldvaluessurvey.org). LONGITUDINAL AGGREGATE v.20150418.

Zak, P. J. and Knack, S. (2001). Trust and growth, The economic journal 111(470): 295–321.