Quantifying Culture: Problems and Promises

Recently economists, even many in the mainstream, have come to acknowledge the influence of culture on the economic process. Some, like original institutionalists, have a thorough understanding of and appreciation for the richness of culture and are, therefore, suspicious of any attempt to quantify cultural information. Others, particularly those trained in the use of statistical methods, are anxious to incorporate culture into statistical/quantitative models and may rush to quantify and include cultural information in their models without a full appreciation of the meaning(s) of culture. This paper reiterates the role of culture in the economy, explores several attempts to quantify culture, and reviews a number of papers that incorporate cultural information into statistical analyses. The broad purpose is to evaluate the prospects for incorporating culture into statistical models in ways that respect the richness of culture as it is perceived by institutionalists.