Schwartz Human Values and the Economic Performance

In the literature, human values are defined as desirable, trans-situational goals serving as guiding principles in people's lives. Schwartz introduced the concept of ten different values that are grouped into four higher order values: openness to change, conservation, self-transcendence, and self-enhancement. Some of the Schwartz values will underlie acting for one's own good, the others for the good of the community. The collective output of the community will depend on these two types of actions and the relations between them. Acting for the benefit of others may, yet does not have to, increase the total benefit for the community, even when it leads to less benefit to the self. In this paper we provide an analogy for the mechanisms underlying the relation between Schwartz values and economic output. The observed economic output is a result of the behaviour of many heterogeneous agents interacting with each other. The main problem is to verify whether and how the differences in the distributions of Schwartz values in a given community may influence its collective economic output. We classify Schwartz values into two different groups, based on the different effects these values may have on the observed collective output. A higher importance of self-enhancement (power, achievement, and hedonism) and conservation (security, tradition, and conformity) increases working time in the public sector and the public goods return, while simultaneously lowering working time in the private sector and the private goods return. The values of openness to change (stimulation and self-direction) and self-transcendence (universalism and benevolence) have the opposite effect.