Culture, Institutions, and the Wealth of Nations

Yuriy Gorodnichenko; Gérard Roland

doi:10.1162/rest_a_00599

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Culture, Institutions, and the Wealth of Nations

Yuriy Gorodnichenko¹; Gérard Roland²

¹ University of California, Berkeley and NBER · ² University of California, Berkeley, NBER, and CEPR

The Review of Economics and Statistics 2017

We argue that a more individualist culture leads to more innovation and to higher growth because of the social status rewards associated with innovation in that culture. We use data on the frequency of particular genes associated with collectivist cultures, as well as a measure of distance in terms of frequencies of blood types, and historic prevalence of pathogens to instrument individualism scores. The relationship between individualism and innovation/growth remains strong even after controlling for institutions and other potentially confounding factors. We also provide evidence consistent with two-way causality between culture and institutions.

DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_00599
Volume: 99 (3)
Pages: 402-416
Language: en
Export: BibTeX
Sources: openalex crossref