Amir N. Licht Chanan Goldschmidt Shalom H. Schwartz
Abstract
This study presents evidence about relations between national culture and social institutions. We operationalize culture with data on cultural dimensions for over 50 nations adopted from cross-cultural psychology and generate testable hypotheses about three basic social norms of governance: the rule of law, corruption, and accountability. These norms correlate systematically and strongly with national scores on cultural dimensions and also differ across cultural regions of the world. Regressions indicate that quantitative measures of national culture are alone remarkably predictive of governance, that economic inequality and British heritage add to predictive power, but that economic development and other factors add little. The results suggest a framework for understanding the relations between fundamental institutions of social order as well as policy implications for reform programs in transition economies.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Length: 54 pages Date of creation: 24 Jul 2003 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:wdi:papers:2003-605
Contact details of provider: Postal: 724 E. University Ave. Wyly Hall, Floor 1, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1234 Phone: 734 615 4566 Fax: (734) 763-5850 Email: Web page: http://www.wdi.umich.edu More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Patricia Loh).
Find related papers by JEL classification: K00 - Law and Economics - - General - - - General (including Data Sources and Description) O10 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General O19 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations P20 - Economic Systems - - Socialist Systems and Transition Economies - - - General P26 - Economic Systems - - Socialist Systems and Transition Economies - - - Political Economy P50 - Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems - - - General Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Social Norms and Social Capital; Social Networks Economic Anthropology
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Wacziarg, Romain & Alesina, Alberto & Devleeschauwer, Arnaud & Easterly, William & Kurlat, Sergio, 2002.
"Fractionalization,"
Research Papers
1744, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
[Downloadable!]
Alberto Alesina & Arnaud Devleeschauwer & William Easterly & Sergio Kurlat & Romain Wacziarg, 2003.
"Fractionalization,"
NBER Working Papers
9411, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Thorsten Beck & Asli Demirguc-Kunt & Ross Levine, 2002.
"Law, Endowment, and Finance,"
NBER Working Papers
9089, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)